/ 3o7 



THE SCOTCH-IRISH 
IN AMERICA: 



THEIR HISTORY, TRAITS, INSTITUTIONS 
AND INFLUENCES: ESPECIALLY AS IL^ 
LUSTRATED IN THE EARLY SETTLERS OF 
WESTERN PE'NNSYLVANIAi AND THEIR 
DESCENDANTS 



BY 

John Walker DInsmore, D.D., LL.D. 



THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
CHICAGO ILLINOIS 






1 



UBRARYef CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
JAN 2 1907 
Cepyrlijht Entey . , 

y\ xxc, N((. 



Copyright 

1906 

The Winona Publishing Company. 



FOREWORD 

Some time ago I wrote for the Pres- 
byterian Banner, a short series of pa- 
pers on, — "A Typical Scotch-Irish 
Community Fi.fty-Odd Years Ago." 
These papers awakened an interest 
quite unexpected, especially among 
the people of this race. Letters came 
to the writer from widely separated 
sections of the country, requesting him 
to expand the papers and publish them 
in a volume. Several ancient congre- 
gations took formal action to the same 
effect. This little book is the result. 
The articles in the Banner were simply 
the basis of what is here written much 
enlarged. It does not pretend to be 
an adequate history of the Scotch-Irish 
people in this land. Its aim is much 
less ambitious. It is simply an at- 
i 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

tempt to sketch with a free hand, some 
of the characteristic traits, ways of life, 
institutions and influences of this race, 
particularly in the earlier days in this 
country. Western Pennsylvania is se- 
lected for the purpose of illustration, 
because that section was first settled 
and is still dominated by the most pow- 
erful Scotch-Irish community in Amer- 
ica. No effort has been made to give 
this little book orderly arrangement, or 
to cast it into logical form. It is 
simply a series of sketches, true to na- 
ture and to fact; pictures of a people, 
their doings and the conditions under 
which they lived in former days. The 
chief thing to be regretted is that a 
more clever and skilful hand did not 
hold the brush. 

John Walker Dinsmore. 

San Jose, Cal. 

ii 



Bloomington, III., June i8th, 1906. 

I have read with deep interest the 
advance sheets of "The Scotch-Irish 
in America", by Rev. Dr. John W. 
Dinsmore, my friend, and former pas- 
tor. It is in every respect an admir- 
able book. Every man who has a drop 
of Scotch-Irish blood in his veins will 
be profoundly interested in its perusal. 
Dr. Dinsmore knows whereof he 
writes. Nothing the book contains is 
matter of hearsay to him. The people 
described are those among whom he 
was reared — his neighbors and 
friends; the incidents mentioned, those 
of which he was the witness in his early 
life. 

The congregation so graphically de- 
scribed is the type of thousands of 
iii 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

others scattered throughout this broad 
land. In this book we live again in 
the old ways and fashions of our 
fathers and much that should never 
have been forgotten is vividly recalled. 
Dr. Dinsmore has rendered a valua- 
ble service in this clear-cut presentation 
of the good old times and customs — 
home life and church life — of the gen- 
eration of which but few remain. 
Young and old alike will find pleasure 
and profit in the perusal of this book. 
Adlai E. Stevenson. 



IV 



THE SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMER- 
ICA: ESPECIALLY IN SOUTH- 
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 
THEIR SETTLEMENTS, IN- 
STITUTIONS, TRAITS AND 
INFLUENCES. 

CHAPTER I 

For two hundred years and more, 
the Scotch-Irish race has been a very 
potential and beneficent factor in the 
development of the American Repub- 
lic. All things considered, it seems 
probable that the people of this race 
have cut deeper into the history of the 
United States than have the people of 
any other race though they have not 
I 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

been by any means the most numerous 
or boastful. This is not an extrava- 
gant statement. It can be verified 
by irrefragable proofs. Until recent 
years the Scotch-Irish have been 
mostly silent about their achievements. 
They have been content to do the work 
given them to do and let others take 
the glory. Less than twenty years ago, 
at Columbia, Tenn., the Scotch-Irish 
Society of America was organized, 
with the late Robert Bonner of New 
York, as President, the late Dr. John 
Hall of the same city, as Vice-Presi- 
dent; and others as officers, together 
with a long list of members, many of 
them distinguished in various walks of 
life. The writer of this book was one 
of its original members, and for several 
years one of its executive committee, 
and hence had good opportunities of 

2 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

coming into contact with thousands of 
the people of the race. Branch socie- 
ties were organized in many of the 
states from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
and great interest was awakened among 
the people of this blood all over the 
country. The Society has published 
eight volumes of carefully prepared 
papers, historical and biographical, 
setting forth some of the achievements 
of this race in this land. These vol- 
umes set up claims which on first 
thought may be deemed extravagant, 
presumptuous, and even absurd, but 
which are incontestably established by 
ample proofs. At one of the meetings 
of the Congress of the Society, a prom- 
inent gentleman, himself one of the 
race, remarked, "Well, if the Scotch- 
Irish have done all these things with 
which they are credited, I wonder what 
3 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

in the world all the rest of mankind 
have been doing meanwhile." These 
papers however, are not bombast; very 
far from it. Many of them were writ- 
ten by men of large reputation as his- 
torical students. They are simply a 
recital of the indubitable facts of our 
history, and of the part men and 
women of this blood had in them. The 
sober fact is, that judged by the cri- 
terion of valuable and enduring work 
done along every line of useful life, 
no other race has had equal influence 
on the course of American history dur- 
ing the last two-hundred years; not 
even excepting the descendants of the 
Pilgrims. Let any one scrutinize the 
list of names distinguished in our an- 
nals; names of men eminent in public 
life from Presidents down; men dis- 
tinguished in the Church, in the Army, 
4 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

in the Navy, at the Bar, on the Bench, 
in Medicine and Surgery, in educa- 
tion, trade, commerce, invention, dis- 
covery — in any and all the arts which 
add to the freedom, enlightenment and 
wealth of the world, and to the conven- 
ience and comfort of mankind; names 
which have won lustre in every honor- 
able calling, — let him scrutinize the list 
and see for himself how large a pro- 
portion of these names represent men 
who have this blood in their veins. 
The proportion of men of this race who, 
in Great Britain and America have 
reached great distinction, is certainly 
very remarkable. Somehow the North 
of Ireland has been the breeding-place 
of great men and great influences in 
the old world and the new. Many 
of the greatest soldiers and naval he- 
roes of England, Prime Ministers, 

5 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Lords-Chancellor, Archbishops, and 
others eminent in the history of that 
land for several hundred years, have 
been of this race. Those sections of 
the world where these people have set- 
tled in large numbers and where their 
influence has been strongly felt, have, 
without exception, shown a distinctly 
marked type of industrial, commercial, 
social, political, intellectual, and most 
of all, religious life: and such commu- 
nities have invariably been centres of 
enterprise, thrift, prosperity, and mag- 
azines of beneficent force to the entire 
surrounding country. We may chal- 
lenge the world to show us a single ex- 
ample of a community where these 
people predominated, and yet where 
ignorance, poverty, crime, superstition, 
or any form of human debasement pre- 
vailed. Without exception, the nest- 
6 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

iiig places of the Scotch-Irish have 
been breeding-places of free and force- 
ful men and of the far-reaching and up- 
lifting influences. These people have 
been much more given to making his- 
tory than they have been to writing it, 
and hence their achievements have not 
been heralded abroad as they deserve 
to be. 

Now, who were, and who are the 
Scotch-Irish? The common notion is 
that they are a mongrel breed, partly 
Scotch and partly Irish; that is, the 
progeny of a cross between the ancient 
Scot and the ancient Celt or Kelt. 
This is an entire mistake. Whatever 
blood may be in the veins of the gen- 
uine Scotch-Irishman, one thing is cer- 
tain, and that is that there is npt 
mingled with it one drop of the blood 
of the old Irish or Kelt. From time 

7 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

immemorial these two races have been 
hostile, and much of the time bitterly 
so. True enough, if you run down the 
Highland Scot and the old Irish to 
their deepest root, you will come to a 
common taproot in the ancient Celt or 
Kelt, one of the main stems of the great 
Aryan race which, ages ago, migrated 
into Europe from Asia. The Erse, the 
Gael, the Cymri, and the Manx were 
all originally of this stock, and their 
descendants survive today in the old 
Irish, the Highland Scotch, the Welsh, 
and the people of the Isle of Man. 
The Lowland Scotch, however, were of 
a quite different stock. They were of 
Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon origin, and 
were separated from their neighbors 
on either side by race, language, reli- 
gion, and personal traits. In the very 
early ages they came into the lowlands 
8 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

of Scotland, and there their descend- 
ants live today. They were for a long 
time a rude, semi-barbarous, and fierce 
people. They were much given to fre- 
quent predatory forays into the north 
of England for the purpose of plun- 
dering the sheep-folds and cattle-yards 
of their neighbors south of the Tweed. 
Once in a public address in San Fran- 
cisco, I caused some comment by con- 
fessing that my forefathers used to 
make raids into England every autumn, 
and filch from the people there all the 
supplies they needed for the coming 
winter, and then unless they looked 
sharp, the Highlanders would pounce 
down upon them and rob them of 
what they had taken from the English. 
Their conversion to Christianity, and 
especially their re-conversion in the 
time of Knox, wrought a radical and 

9 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

revolutionary transformation of these 
people. It left them with their native 
vigor and masculine force unimpaired, 
while it tamed their ferocity, and put 
into them a strong sentiment of justice 
and brotherhood. Now the Scotch- 
Irishman is a lowland Scotchman 
who moved over into the north of Ire- 
land and there lived for a generation 
or more, or lives there still. Mean- 
while, the change of residence brought 
certain decided changes in him, in his 
type and temperament. During the 
latter half of the seventeenth century 
and the first quarter of the eighteenth, 
the lowland Scotch in large numbers 
crossed over into Ireland, and there 
settled, chiefly in the Province of Ul- 
ster. This migration was due to sev- 
eral causes; some of them industrial, 
some political, and most of them re- 

10 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ligious. The lowland Scotch almost 
to a man embraced the doctrines of the 
Reformation. They were the stalwart 
and steadfast principles of John Knox, 
and as a consequence soon began to be 
sorely harried by the persecutions then 
rife in Scotland. Large numbers of 
people who believed the gospel of our 
Lord, and who hated tyranny whether 
of priest or prince, passed over into 
Ulster where, at that time, there was 
promise of larger liberty of conscience 
and worship. They were Calvinists 
and Presbyterians almost to a man, 
and to the marrow; the spiritual chil- 
dren of Knox and his successors ; people 
who hated tyrants with invincible ha- 
tred, whether they wore the cowl or the 
crown; people whose fathers had suf- 
fered for their faith, and who them- 
selves had been cruelly persecuted in 
II 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

that behalf. It is not strange at all 
that they carried with them much of 
the bitter and resentful spirit which 
persecution always breeds in its vic- 
tims. Did they hate Rome and all that 
pertained to it? Why should they not? 
Had not Rome robbed, tortured and 
burnt their forefathers? And had not 
the Church of England, but half re- 
formed, done the like to them? Of 
course, they carried bitterness in their 
hearts and sternness in their visage to- 
wards those who were bent on stran- 
gling them for their faith. We must 
not blame them overmuch for this. If 
they were intolerant, it was because 
they learned the lesson from those who 
had done their utmost to burn them. 
How can we expect one to tolerate the 
man who is trying to assassinate him? 
It is too much to ask of one who is in 

12 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

a death grapple with a burglar that he 
shall treat him gently; that he shall 
wear the smirk of a dancing-master. 
The man who is in mortal struggle for 
his liberty or his life, must be resolute 
and stern, or meanly die like a coward 
or a slave. Our fathers were neither 
cowards nor slaves ; they did not meanly 
die, whatever else they did. 

People who suffer persecution for 
the true faith of Christ are always the 
most valuable element in the popula- 
tion of any country. Whenever such 
people have been driven from their 
own land to seek asylum elsewhere, 
they have invariably proved an inval- 
uable blessing to the lands that gave 
them welcome. In all history there is 
no exception to this rule. These 
people who settled in Ulster believed 
in their very souls that they were the 

13 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

elect of the High God, that they were 
under His protection, that the meek 
should inherit the earth, that the world 
and the fulness thereof belonged to 
their Divine King, and hence to them, 
and they fearlessly proceeded to put 
that conviction into execution. They 
believed that every acre of land on 
which they set their foot belonged to 
the saints; that they were the saints, 
and hence it belonged to them. The 
premise may not have warranted the 
conclusion, but they deeply believed 
that it did, and so they acted. In 
truth, these people have generally held 
this faith, and have not been slow in 
showing it by their works. Hence 
they had no scruple about rooting out 
the old Irish from Ulster. They prob- 
ably felt towards these Irish somewhat 
as the Hebrew felt towards the Philis- 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

tines when he entered Canaan. The 
land belonged to him ; it was given him 
by the Lord ; the Philistine was an in- 
terloper, and must be ejected forth- 
with. However unwarranted and mis- 
guided, that seems to have been the 
feeling of these people, and so they 
proceeded to take the province for 
themselves. They must have room, 
whoever should have to give way, and 
so it was not long until Ulster was 
dominated by these people. 

Meanwhile, other Protestants, es- 
pecially Presbyterians, from England, 
and Huguenots persecuted out of 
France, came in large numbers to the 
same province, and were gladly wel- 
comed to fellowship. The Scotch-Ir- 
ishman never turns a cold shoulder to 
one who agrees with him. He is very 
hospitable to people of like faith and 
15 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

spirit. With these English and 
French Presbyterians they freely inter- 
mingled and intermarried, but with 
the old Irish, their relations were those 
of the Hebrew and the Canaanite; it 
was war to the knife, and the knife to 
the hilt. Their feuds were constant, 
fierce and deadly. Their blood never 
intermingled except on the battlefield. 
Hence it turns out that the genuine 
Scotch-Irishman is at bottom a low- 
land Scot, with an admixture of the 
bluff and sturdy qualities of the Eng- 
lish Puritan, and a dash of the genius, 
grace and humor of the French Hu- 
guenot. This makes a remarkable 
combination of qualities, and we find 
them blended and balanced in the typ- 
ical Scotch-Irishman. There is in him 
/ the steadfastness, not to say, stubborn- 
ness, of the Scot; the rugged strength 
i6 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and aggressive force of the Saxon, with 
an infusion of the vivacity, ready gen- 
ius and sanguine temperament of the 
Frenchman. It is not claimed of 
course, that every individual of the race 
exhibits this combination, but it char- 
acterizes the type; it is an idiosyncrasy 
of the race as such. 

The people had a passionate love of ^ 
liberty. They were fiercely intolerant 
alike of spiritual and political despot- 
ism. A very powerful emotionalism 
ran through their nature, but usually it 
was held in stern restraint. The fires 
of passion were deep and hot, but they 
were rarely suffered to break out into 
destructive conflagration. The truth 
revealed by the Lord, as they saw it, 
they believed with all the strength of 
their powerful nature. They clung to 
their Calvinism with a grip which 
17 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

death itself could not relax. Indus- 
trious, frugal, sagacious, fearless, long- 
enduring, they were admirably fitted 
for the work they were sent into the 
world to do. 

The results of their thrift and force- 
fulness soon began to appear in Ulster. 
That Province is naturally the least 
fertile in Ireland, but under their man- 
agement it soon became by far the most 
prosperous. As fast as they got pos- 
session, they drained out the bogs, 
cleared up and improved the land, and 
so changed the aspect of the country 
that the traveller could at once see the 
difference as he crossed the line into 
Ulster. It is so until this day. They 
soon made their power felt in the great 
struggle then going on for civil and 
religious liberty. In the decisive rev- 
olution of 1668, culminating in the 
18 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ever-memorable siege of Londonderry, 
and the notable battle of the Boyne, 
which saved the liberties and the re- 
ligion of the English-speaking race, 
unquestionably in that tremendous 
crisis, the Scotch-Irish people of Ul- 
ster were the forlorn hope of the Prot- 
estant cause. The heroism shown by 
them, especially in the unparalleled 
siege of Derry, has never been sur- 
passed in the annals of mankind. Let 
any one read Lord Macaulay's story of 
that great event if he would appreciate 
the inflexible resolution and invincible 
stamina of this race. As already said, 
the number of men from that small 
province who have reached great 
places of power and usefulness in every 
honorable line of life in England, has 
been extraordinary. For two hundred 
years or more, Ulster has been a 
19 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

power-house where forces have been 
generated which have been strongly 
felt throughout the modern world. 



20 



CHAPTER II 

People from Ulster began to sift into 
the colonies of this western world dur- 
ing the latter quarter of the seventeenth 
century, and in the first quarter of the 
eighteenth they began to come in con- 
siderable numbers. Before the year 
1700, a good many of them had set- 
tled in the general region round Phil- 
adelphia, but it was not till some years 
later that they became an important 
element in the population. Probably 
their earliest settlements of conse- 
quence were in New England. The 
first of my own name and blood settled 
in New Hampshire about 1718. They 
formed communities at various points 
and exerted a considerable influence 
21 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

in New England. Many of the fore- 
most men in the history of that sec- 
tion had this blood in their veins. Dr. 
Perry, Professor of History in Wil- 
liams College, read an elaborate paper 
before the Scotch-Irish Congress at 
Pittsburgh in 1890, setting forth with 
much fulness of detail, the achieve- 
ments of this race in New England. 
His paper shows that the children of 
the Scotch-Irish have no cause to blush 
when the achievements of their ances- 
tors are brought into comparison with 
those of the Pilgrims of Plymouth 
Rock, even in that part of the land. At 
the same time these men of Ulster 
never came to New England in suffi- 
cient numbers to give their own dis- 
tinctive type to society in that general 
region. They were strong in certain 
communities only. They were in quest 
22 



^ 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

of more fertile lands than could be 
found about Massachusetts Bay. 
Their main ports of entry were New- 
castle and Philadelphia, and from those 
points they soon became a powerful ele- 
ment in Delaware, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania and Maryland. They had a 
strong craving for rich land, and when 
they found it they were determined to 
have it, no matter how many or how 
great the difficulties in the way. 
Hence the stream of migration flowed 
into the Cumberland Valley, into the 
Shenandoah, on into the Valley of Vir- 
ginia, and thence into the Carolinas, 
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and by 
degrees into the entire south-west. 
Another powerful stream flowed di- 
rectly westward to the AUeghenies, and 
over them and passed on into what is 
now southwestern Pennsylvania, and 
23 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

thence westward into Ohio, and so on 
towards the setting sun. The earliest 
settlements west of the Monongahela 
date about 1770. No doubt adventur- 
ous hunters and explorers had pene- 
trated the wilderness earlier than that, 
but permanent settlements were not es- 
tablished till about that time. My own 
paternal great-grandfather came over 
the mountains from York County and 
settled on Miller's Run, twelve miles 
southeast of the present city of Pitts- 
burgh, in 1774-5. The original plan- 
tation on which he then settled is still 
owned by some of his lineal descend- 
ants. At that time Fort Pitt was but 
a shabby frontier post, and the whole 
region round about was an almost un- 
broken wilderness, swarming with wild 
beasts and still wilder men. But at 
that time the people began to come who 
24 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

had been chosen and qualified by Al- 
mighty Providence to subdue that 
goodly land and possess it. The heir 
was coming to his inheritance; the He- 
brew was facing his Canaan ; and while 
he clearly foresaw the magnitude of the 
undertaking, he believed himself fully 
equal to it. He did not for one mo- 
ment quail before his mighty task. 
Within a very few years these people 
had their settlements here and there all 
over the territory included within the 
bend of the rivers. A little later, they 
crossed the Ohio, driving the Indians 
before them, and from there spreading 
westward, always leading the migra- 
tion, pushing boldly on to the frontier, 
penetrating the wilderness and subdu- 
ing it; and so on in the course of time, 
into Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and at 
length clear through to the Pacific 
25 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Coast, where their influence has been 
powerfull}^ felt from the beginning of 
the American occupancy. In the year 
1905, there was in Portland, Ore- 
gon, a splendid exposition celebrating 
the great exploring expedition of Cap- 
tains Lewis and Clark across the con- 
tinent a hundred years ago. One of 
these redoubtable men certainly was of 
this race, and both of them probably 
were. It has been ascertained that the 
majority of the most famous frontiers- 
men of the forest, the plains and the 
mountains of the entire central and 
western part of this country have been 
of this blood. Twenty years before the 
opening of the last century, Col. 
George Rogers Clarke, a Scotch-Irish- 
man, comissioned by Governor Patrick 
Henry of Virginia, another Scotch- 
Irishman, organized and led the great 
26 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

military expedition which redeemed 
the whole Northwest Territory, out of 
which five great states have been 
carved. The settlements of these 
people did not follow the wave of con- 
quest; they were themselves the earliest 
wave. No other people ever broke the y 
way for them; they broke it for them- 
selves and for others who followed. 
They were predestined and born pio- 
neers of the first order, conquerors of 
unfriendly nature and unfriendly men. 
Emerson tells us that the earth belongs 
to the energetic man. According to 
this criterion, these people certainly 
proved their title. They opened the 
way for weaker and less resolute men. 
With unflinching fortitude they faced 
the wilderness and the savage. There 
/v was nothing of either the coward o/the 
^ sluggard in their nature. For the 

27 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

most part, they were a lean, sinewy, 
strong-boned, heavily-muscled breed; 
tough and hardy, sound of lung and 
limb, with nerves of steel and a diges- 
tive apparatus that might have excited 
the envy of a grizzly bear; not in the 
least afraid of hard work, severe priva- 
tion, or great peril, if only they could 
get on in life ; not very easy to live with 
unless one agreed with them and fell 
into their ways. They were overcom- 
ers by nature, by training and by equip- 
ment. Nobody ever overcame them, 
while they never failed to overcome all 
who stood in their way. They con- 
quered the forest, the savage, the 
French, the British; they took whatever 
land they wanted, and held it against 
all comers. Wherever they settled, 
they remained. 

From their first coming to our 
28 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

shores, they exerted in proportion to 
their numbers, an extraordinary influ- 
ence on the fortunes of the country, es- 
pecially previous to and during the 
struggle for Independence. From the 
first they were the steadfast and stren- 
uous champions of civil and religious 
liberty in the colonies. They were not 
foolish, fretful and fussy agitators. 
They were utterly free from fanatical 
Impulses and visionary theories ; cool, 
calculating, practical, hard-headed. 
They wanted liberty, and were bound 
to have it at whatever cost; liberty of 
conscience, of worship and of political 
action, but they did not want license or 
anarchy. Patrick Henry spoke not 
only from his own heart, but from the 
heart of his race when he cried, "Give 
me liberty, or give me death." But it 
was liberty regulated by just laws. 
29 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Bancroft, the great historian of the 
United States says, "The first voice 
publicly raised in America to dissolve 
all connection with Great Britain, came 
not from the Puritans of New Eng- 
land, nor from the planters of Virginia, 
nor from the Dutch of New York, but / 
from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." 
The great Declaration made by these 
people at Mecklenberg was more than 
a year earlier than the one made 
in Philadelphia. The Westmoreland 
Resolutions also antedated that most 
famous document. During the war 
the Scotch-Irish were incomparably 
the most effective element in Washing- 
ton's army. They were exceedingly 
influential in the Continental Congress, 
and in the various colonial assemblies. 
So far as appears there was not a Tory 
among them. In the darkest hours, 
30 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

times that tried men's souls, when mul- 
titudes were ready to give up, they 
stood stalwart and resolute. Their 
ministers preached and prayed, and in 
not a few instances, organized compa- 
nies and regiments and led them to bat- 
tle. The battle of King's Mountain 
for instance, which drove Cornwallis 
and the British forces from the entire 
southern country, was fought almost 
exclusively by these Scotch-Irish, 
nearly every regiment being com- 
manded by a Presbyterian elder. 

That battle was peculiar in this, that 
every man of the enemy was either 
killed or captured. Not a single man 
got away. Undoubtedly in preparing 
for the great struggle and during its 
continuance, the men and women of this 
blood had a share far out of proportion 
to their numbers. In the councils of 
31 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

the colonies, in the Congress, in the 
army, in creating public opinion and 
keeping it alive, they were the active, 
intelligent, resolute and uncompromis- 
ing champions of the movement for in- 
dependence. Here may be quoted the 
words of Col. A. K. M'Clure, the 
famous Philadelphia editor: "It was 
the Scotch-Irish people of the colonies 
that made the declaration of 1776. 
Without them it would not have been 
thought of except as a passing fancy. 
The action of the Continental Congress 
voiced the teachings of the Scotch- 
Irish people of the land. They did 
not falter, they did not dissemble, they 
did not temporize. It was not the 
Quaker, not the Puritan, not the Cava- 
lier, not even the Huguenot or the Ger- 
man ; it was the Scotch-Irish of the land 
whose voice was first heard in Virginia. 
32 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

In the valley of Virginia, in North 
Carolina, in Cumberland and West- 
moreland counties in Pennsylvania, the 
Scotch-Irish had declared that these 
colonies are and of right ought to be 
free and independent. They had 
taught this not only in their public 
speeches, but at their altars, in their 
pulpits, at their firesides, and it was 
from these that came that outburst of 
rugged and determined people that 
made the declaration of 1776 possible. 
They were its authors, and they were 
ready to maintain it by all the moral 
and physical power they possessed. 
They meant that Scotch-Irish blood 
was ready to flow on the battle field, 
and come weal or woe, they would 
maintain it with their lives." 

The influence of these people on the 
subsequent course of American history, 

33 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

upon the industries, the commerce, the 
inventions, the educational, philan- 
thropic and charitable institutions of 
the country, and especially upon its re- 
ligious development, has been equally 
remarkable. But it does not fall 
within the scope of this book to follow 
this general history further. Let it be 
said, however, that we have reason to 
be proud of the heroism of our an- 
cestors. It may be true of many of us 
that the best part of us is underground. 



34 



CHAPTER III 

As already said, a strong stream of 
Scotch-Irish emigration flowed over 
the Alleghenies into southwestern 
Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary 
War. During the continuance of that 
war, it slackened somewhat, as the 
times were troublous, and men's minds 
were full of doubt. Besides, owing to 
the dispute between Pennsylvania and 
Virginia as to which had jurisdiction 
over that territory, titles were very un- 
certain. But as the war drew to a 
close, and particularly, immediately 
after its close, the flow greatly in- 
creased, and within a very few years 
large numbers of these people followed 
their friends over the mountains. 

35 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Many of them had been soldiers in the 
war, and came out to locate their land 
warrants. It is hardly too much to say 
that they were the pick of their people. 
They exhibited in an intensified de- 
gree the typical traits of their race. 
They were venturesome, fearless, hun- 
gry for good land, and bound to get on 
in the world; not learned in the schools 
as a rule, but clear-eyed, level-headed, 
with what one might call, enormous 
common sense, practical sagacity and 
understanding of the times; deeply se- 
rious, even stern in their piety; reso- 
lute and unfaltering in their belief of 
the gospel of our Lord as expounded 
by John Calvin and John Knox; not 
underestimating the difficulties in their 
way and the dangers that beset them, 
and yet not in the least intimidated by 
them, nor by the certainty of hard toil, 

36 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

severe privations and manifold perils 
in their front,— these were the people 
who redeemed southwestern Pennsyl- 
vania from the wilderness and the sav- 
age. They pushed out boldly to the 
extreme frontier and plunged into the 
deep forest, where there were no set- 
tlements, no clearings, no roads, no 
conveniences, where nature was utterly 
wild and the woods swarming with sav- 
ages. They were the buffer between 
the Indians in front, and the Quaker 
and German who crept along quietly 
in the rear, and who thus saved their 
hands from rough toil and their hides 
from being punctured with arro^ by 
keeping well in the background. 
These were quite content to follow soft- 
ly in the rear and take quiet possession 
of lands that braver men had to fight 
for. What wonder that these hardy 
Z7 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

pioneers should have had so hearty a 
contempt for the stolid "Pennsylvania 
Dutchman," and sleek and oily Quak- 
er? They reasoned that if nobody but 
these and their like had come to the 
country, it would have continued to be 
a howling wilderness. The Quakers 
did not like the Scotch-Irish, and no 
doubt the feeling was reciprocated with 
interest. Col. M'Clure says, "The 
Quakers wanted the Scotch-Irish im- 
migration stopped, and sent a petition 
to the council of Pennsylvania asking 
for this, and declaring that these 
Scotch-Irish were a pernicious and 
pugnacious people." The Quakers 
provoked warfare, and then left the 
Scotch-Irish to fight it out. They 
would go among the Indians and trade 
with them, giving them firearms with 
which to kill the Scotch-Irish, who set- 

38 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

tied many counties on the border sim- 
ply because they wanted to get away 
from the Quakers. The Quakers com- 
plained that the Scotch-Irish wanted to 
dominate everything round them. 
Well, of course they did. There never 
was a Scotch-Irish community any- 
where that did not want to dominate 
everything round about it. They dom- 
inated simply because in the nature of 
things it could not be otherwise. 

These southwestern settlements for 
a number of years, had much trouble 
with the Indians. Even after they had 
been driven across the Ohio, the In- 
dians made frequent return forays, 
burning the cabins, laying waste the set- 
tlements, and massacring the people. I 
have heard my grandfather tell of such 
an invasion as late as 1784, when within 
a few miles of the present city of Pitts- 
39 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

burgh, the whole country was devas- 
tated by a sudden incursion of savages. 
He was a little fellow of five, and, with 
his two elder sisters and three little 
cousins, was playing in the edge of 
the clearing, while the parents were 
scutching flax across a ravine. The 
Indians broke from the woods, bar- 
barously tomahawked two of his lit- 
tle cousins, and took their sister, a 
girl of fifteen, prisoner, while he and 
his sisters by swift flight escaped. 
The poor girl was kept in captivity, 
taken to Canada, there redeemed, 
brought back to Philadelphia and 
turned loose to find her way home 
across the mountains as best she could. 
She reached home after an absence 
of three years. As places of refuge 
in times of danger, large block-houses 
were built at various points, into 
40 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

which the settlers could run when the 
Indians made a foray, and there the 
women and children were safe, while 
the men went out to fight the savages 
off. Yet despite all these hardships and 
perils the people stuck to their clear- 
ings, and their posterity are there to- 
day. Probably there is no other sec- 
tion of this country which for a century 
and a third has been so completely 
dominated by this race as has the region 
round Pittsburgh, including that great 
city itself. Judge Chambers, a high 
authority, says, "The great district of 
Pennsylvania for the development of 
the Scotch-Irish character, in its ener- 
gies, and enterprises, religious and 
moral principles, as well its educa- 
tional tendencies and usefulness, was 
southwestern Pennsylvania." They 
took that region at the beginning, and 
41 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

their image and superscription are on it 
to-day. The city of Pittsburgh, with 
all its mighty and world-embracing in- 
dustries, carries most clearly to-day the 
type given it by its Scotch-Irish foun- 
ders. Its standing as a city of solid 
wealth, of commercial integrity, of vast 
but sane and substantial enterprise, is 
surpassed by no other city on the con- 
tinent or in the world. Its banks sel- 
dom break, its great merchants do not 
fail, its huge mills, factories and other 
immense industries very rarely fall into 
bankruptcy. To an unusual extent, the 
business remains in the family, and 
things pass on from sire to son without 
change, except in growth and scope, 
the same in principle, policy and meth- 
od. That city and its immediate en- 
virons make up a community which is 
not surpassed on the continent in those 
42 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

things which are essential to the mate- 
rial, intellectual, and moral well-being 
of any community. The like is true 
of the entire region round about. 
True enough, within the last few years, 
there has been a fearful invasion of 
aliens and foreigners, many of them of 
the vilest class, who have brought a 
new and very great peril to all that 
is most valuable and precious, but it 
still remains true that in the homes, 
the churches, the schools, the business 
methods, the social customs, the indi- 
vidual characteristics, the very vernac- 
ular and provincialisms of the substan- 
tial and really governing classes, the 
type so deeply set a century and more 
ago, is still distinctly marked. That 
section of Pennsylvania is one of ex- 
traordinary natural resources, and 
while our fathers did not know half 
.43 



, SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

the truth, they knew enough to satisfy 
them that the land was well worth hold- 
ing. When they invaded it they found 
a broken country, made up of hills and 
valleys, and wholly covered with mag- 
nificent forests of hard wood, at that 
time of no value to them, but only a 
fearful incumbrance; extremely fertile 
soil, underlaid with stratum on stratum 
of sandstone and limestone rock; be- 
neath that, immense treasures of coal; 
still lower, vast reservoirs of natural 
gas and oil; a land abounding in 
springs, brooks, creeks and rivers. Of 
course they did not see all its treasures, 
but they saw enough to make them de- 
termined to seize and hold it. 

I select that section of the country, 

especially Washington county, as a 

sample of a large community from the 

first dominated by the Scotch-Irish, 

44 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and where the idiosyncrasies of this 
race, personal, social, educational, in- 
dustrial, political, and especially re- 
ligious, are exhibited, and for more 
than a century have been exhibited, 
more strikingly than in any other pop- 
ulous section of this land. What is 
true of that section is true of every 
other where these people have settled 
and remained in sufficient numbers to 
secure control of things. And they do 
not require a majority to gain control, 
for they make up in force what they 
lack in numbers. 

These people have invariably given 
a decided and characteristic type to 
every section in which they have been 
dominant, and that type is a reproduc- 
tion of the one so strongly set in Wash- 
ington county, Pennsylvania. Hence 
in describing this race in that county, 
45 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

I am describing it wherever it is found 
in force. The mines and other great 
industries have of late years drawn to 
that section a horde of ignorant, de- 
based and reckless people, alien in race, 
religion, habits and ethical ideas, with 
their lawlessness, debauchery and 
crime, and already they have worked 
great changes in the conditions that 
formerly existed. It is to be hoped, 
however, that there is stamina enough 
left in the posterity of our forefathers 
to beat back this peril, and to preserve 
to that community the type it has so 
long borne. 



46 



CHAPTER IV 

As already intimated, these pioneers 
of southwestern Pennsylvania seem to 
have had in unusual degree the marked 
characteristics of their race; great en- 
ergy and general force of character, 
with uncommon intelligence, practical 
wisdom, self-command, and, above all, 
deep and controlling piety. Their 
mood was earnest, and they took life 
seriously. In their minds human life 
under the sun was not sport ; it was very 
unlike sport; it was no mere holiday, 
no carouse, or frolic. It was earnest 
business. No man could play, or 
laugh, or dance his way through this 
world and come to anything good. 
And yet they were not a gloomy, mo- 
47 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

rose, or ascetic people. If that had 
been their mood, they never could have 
done the w^ork they did. They w^ere 
cheery, hopeful, brave, steadfast. 
There w^as in them a rich vein of hu- 
mor too, rather coarse in texture and 
rough on the edges, but not bitter or 
malicious. The younger sort of them 
was much given to practical jokes. 
The people vv^ere hospitable, social, 
neighborly. There was far more sun- 
shine in their lives than is commonly 
supposed, and this despite the hard 
conditions under which they lived. 
Considering the close limitations of 
their lives and their isolation from the 
currents of the populous world, they 
were highly intelligent as a rule. They 
had not the training of the schools, but 
they had the training of practical life, 
and of much reflection. They had 

48 ■ . 



SCQTCIMRISH IN AMERICA 

great respect for real learning. They 
would not listen to a minister who had 
not a classical and theological educa- 
tion. They cared but little for the 
trimmings, the mere filigree, but for 
solid learning they had very high 
regard. Especially did they exhibit 
in a high degree what we call practi- 
cal wisdom and common sense. They 
searched out the good lands and were 
not backward in laying hold of them 
with a hand that could not be shaken 
loose. It never was found an easy job 
to "jump" the claim of a Scotch-Irish- 
man, whether in Pennsylvania or Cali- 
fornia. Ex-Gov. Proctor Knott once 
said, "The Scotch-Irishman is one 
who keeps the commandments of God, 
and every other good thing he can 
get his hands on." In undaunted 
courage, inflexible resolution, and un- 
49 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

wearied industry, they have never been 
surpassed by any people. They had 
great patience too, and were willing to 
work hard and wait long, believing 
that while they might have to die in 
faith without entering into the prom- 
ises, God was preparing some bet- 
ter thing for those who were to come 
after them. They practised the closest 
economy in everything. To them 
waste was sin. However ample the 
table, everybody was expected to clean 
up his plate, else he ought not to have 
taken so much. They dug every small- 
est potato from the row, and wrenched 
every least nubbin from the husk. 
They gleaned their grainfields and 
raked their meadows clean. Men who 
would turn out their last dollar at some 
call of religion or humanity, would 
stoop to pick up a pin, and would 
SO 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

patch their garments as long as they 
could be made to hold together. 

Their family feeling was intensely 
strong and enduring, while there was 
but little effusive expression of it in 
words or caresses. Men were seldom 
seen kissing their wives or fondling 
their children, and almost never heard 
indulging in warm expressions of af- 
fection. They practised a stern repres- 
sion of these emotional exhibitions. 
At the same time these very men shrank 
from no toil or exposure for their wives 
and children, and if called upon, as they 
sometimes were, to risk and give up 
their lives in their defense, they would 
not hesitate a moment. 

No doubt they were a "pugnacious" 
people, as the Quakers said they were; 
quick to take offence and to resent an 
injury, and slow to be appeased and 

51 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

reconciled. Hence their feuds were 
many, bitter and lasting. If they had 
not been restrained by religion they 
would have been the terror of their 
neighbors, as their forefathers before 
their conversion were. Our far-away 
ancestors must have been very uncom- 
fortable people to live with or near to. 
Their inclination to take whatever they 
wanted was extremely strong, and the 
fighting element was deep and hot in 
their blood. Until they were tamed by 
Christianity, they were grasping, ag- 
gressive, fierce. They were not much 
given to bargaining and trafficing for 
what they wanted; if strong enough, 
they simply took it, and left the trading 
to the Jew. Originally and constitu- 
tionally, they acted on the principle 
that might makes right, that the strong 
must rule, that the real king is the man 
52 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

who can. Christianity tamed this wild 
spirit, and yet at bottom, the christian- 
ized Scotch-Irishman even retains 
some of the basal elements of his origi- 
nal nature. Andrew Jackson, for ex- 
ample, was a typical Scotch-Irishman. 
There was nothing of the boodler, the 
grafter, the sneak-thief in his nature. 
Whatever he did, he did boldly, and 
openly. He had a sovereign contempt 
for the Low fellow who did business in 
politics, or anything else, behind the 
door, or in a back room. The creature 
who crawled in the dirt, was the despic- 
able one. Jackson was always ready to 
take the consequences. When he broke 
the United States Bank, and when he 
killed Dickinson, alike, he stood out in 
the open, and took the consequences. 
When the typical Scotch-Irishman does 
wrong, he does it openly and fearlessly. 
53 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA' 

He does not believe in the sneak-thief. 
If he commits larceny at all, as he sel- 
dom does, it is always grand larceny, 
never petty. His crimes are those of 
force and violence ; never of cowardice, 
meanness and treachery. If he breaks 
the law at all, he usually breaks it open- 
ly enough and badly enough to be 
hanged for it. Besides, there was na- 
tive chivalry in these people. When 
once an enemy gave up they would 
treat him with princely magnan- 
imity. But he must give up, give 
up completely. The weak and help- 
less for whom they were in any way 
responsible, they would protect and 
avenge at whatever cost. Whoever 
wronged the wife, the child, or 
even the slave of a genuine Scotch- 
Irishman did it at peril of his life. 
These people had their faults, many 

54 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and grievous faults, but they were 
faults of force and sometimes of vio- 
lence, and never of cowardice and 
treachery. 

They had extraordinary tenacity in 
holding on to good lands when once 
they got possession of them. In the 
immediate vicinity of my birth-place 
many of the farms to-day are in the 
hands of the lineal descendants of the 
men who drove out the Indians and lev- 
elled the forests. There to-day on the 
same acres are living the fifth, and in 
some cases, the sixth generation of the 
original settlers, sitting under the same 
great oaks, drinking out of the same 
spring, and in some instances, dwelling 
under the same roof that refreshed and 
sheltered their great-great-grandfath- 
ers. This is quite unusual in this 
country. Even in Massachusetts and 

55 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA! 



Virginia, the examples of the sixth gen- 
eration living on the same land and in 
the same house are extremely rare. I 
can point to many such examples in the 
old neighborhood of my birth and of 
my fathers. If a family had several 
sons, some of them would strike out 
into the world, and thus the race was 
widely scattered, but nearly always one 
at least would cling to the estate and 
abide by the graves of his ancestors. 
Consequently the type so strongly set 
at the beginning is distinctly marked to- 
day. In whatever is soundest, strong- 
est and best in the current life of that 
whole region, the genius of the Scotch- 
Irish pioneer is still living and ruling. 
They had exceedingly stiff and stren- 
uous notions touching strict integrity 
in business transactions. They are 
charged with being hard at a bargain, 
56 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

close-fisted, and exacting to the last 
penny, but when once the bargain was 
fairly made it was carried out to the 
letter. Failure to pay his debts or to 
stand by his agreement, was enough to 
make one disreputable among his 
neighbors. Unless his failure was 
plainly due to the act of God and to no 
fault of his own, he could hardly live 
longer with comfort in the community. 
Of course their transactions were small 
in comparison with modern standards, 
but they always showed, as their de- 
scendants show to-day, very strict ideas 
of commercial integrity. There are 
not a few bank and mercantile estab- 
lishments in that general region which 
have been in the same family for sev- 
eral generations, and whose reputation 
for the highest integrity has never been 
questioned. 

57 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA! 

In their spirit of independence, their 
passionate devotion to liberty civil and 
religious, and in their unflinching loy- 
alty to Christ and His truth as they saw 
it, they reached the highest levels of 
heroism. They bowed down to the 
earth in adoring worship before Jesus 
Christ, but they would be ground to 
powder before they would bend the 
knee to any other being or thing on 
earth or under it. They hated tyrants 
with all the strength of their powerful 
nature, whether the badge of that ty- 
rant was the cowl of a priest or the cor- 
onet of a lord. This was not a merely 
superficial sentiment with them, nor 
was it wholly the result of education: 
it was constitutional, a fiery passion in 
the blood and marrow. 

In our time, they are often mocked 
at as narrow-minded and bigoted. 

58 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Very well: all strong and overcoming 
men, men who are girded by the tense 
sinews of strenuous convictions, are apt 
to be mocked at by easy-going Sadu- 
cees to whom the truth and a lie are 
pretty much the same. These people 
in their inmost souls really believed 
that certain things were revealed to 
them by the High God, and they were 
ready to stand for these things unto 
death. In their judgment it made an 
infinite difference whether a man be- 
lieved God's truth or the devil's lie. 
Possibly they were too much inclined 
to contend for what we deem the triv- 
ialities of religion, for the mere punc- 
tuation points of creed and catechism. 
They would divide on what seem to us 
very small issues. This is the reason 
there are so many divisions of our com- 
mon Presbyterianism. But after all, 
59 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and considering the work they had to 
do, this was not an unmixed evil. 
Many of the vitalest and most import- 
ant movements of history have had 
their origin in what might be deemed 
trivialities. Very often movements of 
immense consequence to the Church of 
God have swung on what seemed a 
very small hinge. The question as to 
whether a single Greek letter should 
be kept in or put out of one word in the 
creed, gave the early Church three 
hundred years of controversy, and it 
was not unimportant either, for it in- 
volved the whole question of the Deity 
of our Blessed Lord. Later, the ques- 
tion as to whether one word, — filioque, 
• — should be retained in the creed, led 
to bloody wars, vast changes in the map 
of Europe, and to the cleavage of 
Christendom into two great divisions, a 
60 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

cleavage which twelve centuries have 
not healed. This tenacity, not to say 
stubbornness of conviction even as to 
small matters, was a most valuable trait 
in the character of men who were 
called to do the work our fathers had in 
hand. They had to make a fight at 
the outposts, on the picket line, if the 
fortress was to be saved. No doubt 
this proclivity to divide on trivial is- 
sues was sometimes misguided, and at 
times it has been the weakness and scan- 
dal of Presbyterianism. Our fathers 
would stand unto death for what seems 
to us but a punctuation point, but to 
them the punctuation point was import- 
ant as part of God's teaching. They 
believed that no revealed truth of God 
was small; that nothing He ever said 
to men was unimportant. The fact 
that He thought worth while to say it 
6i 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

made it worth while for men to give 
heed to it, to stand for it, to die for it, 
if need be. They had vital convictions 
in their heart of hearts, and they could 
be neither Vv^heedled, bribed nor bullied 
into smothering them. These convic- 
tions could be torn out of them only 
with their lives. They were Calvinists 
and Presbyterians of the old-fashioned 
John Knox type. They were not only 
deeply devout and almost sternly pious, 
but they were minutely, intensely and 
strenuously theological. A congrega- 
tion might be very drowsy of a warm 
Sabbath afternoon, but an Arminian 
squint or a heretical suggestion in the 
sermon would rouse them like a pistol 
shot. With them it was a matter of 
small moment comparatively, how one 
stood with men, but it was of infinite 
moment how he stood with God. It 
62 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

was not of supreme importance that he 
gain the world, but it was of supreme 
importance that he save his own soul 
alive. The first necessity of life after 
the cabin, was the meeting-house, and 
forthwith the school-house. They 
settled at first in colonies, because this 
secured mutual help against the In- 
dians, and enabled them to establish 
their churches and schools. The last 
clap-board had not been put in place 
on the roof of the cabin when the log 
meeting-house was going up. The 
war-whoop of the savage had not died 
away in the forest when there were a 
half dozen churches and three classical 
schools established in what is now 
Washington county. 



f^'^ 



CHAPTER V 

Originally, of course, all the churches 
in southwestern Pennsylvania were in 
the country, because there were no 
towns as yet, the entire population be- 
ing made up of farmers. There were 
at least eight or ten quite large congre- 
gations in various parts of Washing- 
ton county a good while before there 
was an organized congregation in the 
town of Washington, or in Pittsburgh. 
The constituency of these churches in 
the forest was very widely extended, as 
people thought nothing of going ten 
miles or more to service. Everybody 
in all the scattered settlements except 
the very aged and the infirm, went to 
service on the Lord's Day. The mat- 

64 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Tons and small children went on horse- 
back, the men and young people afoot, 
the men striding by the side of their 
mounted women, dressed in buckskin 
trousers and hunting-shirts, and with 
rifles in their hands. My paternal 
great-grandfather was an elder in 
Bethel, which being six or seven miles 
from his home and over fearful roads, 
or rather no roads at all, and being 
a very bulky man, he found the trip 
irksome, and so he bought and removed 
to a tract of land within the bounds of 
Upper Buffalo, "to be near church." 
He was now only three miles away. 
Wheeled vehicles were unknown, or 
nearly so. My grandfather used to 
tell us that when his mother died in 
1784, there was in the entire settle- 
ment but one pair of very clumsy front 
wheels of a wagon, and on the axle 
65 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

the rude box in which his mother's 
dead body was laid, was strapped, and 
bounced over the rough roads to the 
Bethel burying-ground. His father 
and a few neighbors on horseback fol- 
lowed the body. He, a little boy of 
five years, ran after the procession 
pleading to be permitted to follow his 
mother to the grave, but was forbidden. 
This is a pathetic picture of the times. 
Every man worked his clearing with 
his rifle at hand, and every family stood 
ready night and day to make a fight, 
or escape to a neighboring fort. These 
forts were simply large block-houses 
built of logs, and placed at convenient 
points through the settlements. At 
first sign of an Indian raid, a runner, 
or mounted courier v/auld scurry 
through the settlement sounding the 
alarm. During the years from 1770 to 
66 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

1790 the settlers very often had to fly 
from their burning cabins and devas- 
tated fields to these forts for shelter. 
The men would sally forth to drive off 
the savages, and bloody conflicts would 
take place in the deep forest. Mean- 
while a ceaseless vigilance was kept up 
in the forts. When thus shut up, the 
people acted according to their renewed 
nature. They held religious services 
and many were converted to Christ. 
In Vance's fort near Cross Creek, 
where many people were shut up for a 
considerable time, there was a great re- 
vival, with many converts, one of these 
being Thomas Marquis, who later be- 
came a very eloquent minister, and the 
progenitor of a large number of useful 
ministers. These meetings and reviv- 
als went on while the Indians were 
swarming in the surrounding woods 

67 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and laying waste the settlements. I can 
well remember when a small child of- 
ten seeing in the old Buffalo church, 
one of the daughters of the ''silver- 
tongued" Marquis. She was then a 
very aged woman and a widow. She 
still retained remnants of the beauty 
for which she had been noted in her 
youth, and was a famous singer in those 
rude settlements. When she was more 
than eighty years old, we used to hear 
her voice in a high falsetto, singing 
"counter" in the services. Like that 
of many other old people, her voice 
shivered and quavered a good deal, and 
not from purpose at all, for this was 
long before the time when such a trem- 
olo became a silly fad in certain quar- 
ters. 

Very often, at least one son of a fam- 
ily, and sometimes more than one was 
68 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

dedicated to the ministry, or to one of 
the learned professions, and so was 
sent to school and college. When in 
1879, Buffalo and Cross Creek, origin- 
ally one charge, celebrated their cen- 
tennial, it was found that up to that 
time above one hundred young men 
had gone out of that rural community 
into the Christian ministry, besides a 
large number who had gone into other 
professions. When I was a student in 
Allegheny Seminary there were six of 
us in that one institution from Upper 
Buffalo, and I believe nearly as many 
from Cross Creek. It was found that 
during that first century, several hun- 
dred men had gone out to be ruling 
elders of the Church in widely sepa- 
rated sections of the land. Many 
others had been highly useful in other 
callings, and some had attained high 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

distinction. These were but two of a 
group of ancient congregations in that 
general region, and every one of them 
had had a similar history. The like 
was true of the neighboring congrega- 
tions which belonged to the Associate 
and Associate Reformed commun- 
ions, now happily united in the 
United Presbyterian Church. They 
were popularly known as Seceder and 
Union, and were not too friendly 
at that time. The differences be- 
tween them were exceedingly mi- 
nute, but the lines were tensely 
drawn, and there was no intercom- 
munion. In race, type, temperament, 
theology and history, they were pre- 
cisely alike, and like their Presbyter- 
ian neighbors, only they were stricter 
in some respects. The Covenanters, of 
which there were two kinds, were still 
70 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 



stricter. They were the straightest of 
the straight. These divisions were not 
merely formal and nominal; they were 
real and actual. The ministers of the 
Seceders and Covenanters unsparingly 
denounced "occasional hearing," as a 
grievous offence against God. By this 
they meant the going to hear a preacher 
of one of the other divisions when they 
had no service of their own. They 
were to stop at home, studying their 
bible and catechism. The modern 
man would have to get out his micro- 
scope to see the difference between the 
Old Side, and the New Side covenant- 
ers, but all the same, the old side man 
would go through mud and snow ten 
miles to worship in his own conven- 
ticle, though there might be a new side 
church within half a mile of his home. 
The ministers of the different divis- 

71 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ions had very little to do with one 
another. Of ministerial fellowship 
they had absolutely none, and even of 
neighborly fellowship there was next to 
none. Two of them might live for 
years quite near each other, and yet 
the nearest approach to familiarity be 
a formal salutation as they met in the 
highway. The Seceder felt bound in 
conscience to testify against and de- 
nounce his neighbor who sang Watts 
hymns, and the still stricter Covenant- 
er could only consign his Seceder 
brother to the "uncovenanted mercies 
of God." He probably tried in char- 
ity to believe that the Lord might pos- 
sibly have mercy on his misguided and 
blinded soul. There was no apparent 
bitterness of spirit, nor anything ap- 
proaching personal hatred or malice in 
all this; not at all; only there was the 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

stern conviction on the part of each 
that the other was in serious error, and 
that it was his solemn duty to testify 
against his ways in public and in pri- 
vate. It is easy for us to condemn all 
this, but it is a question whether it was 
more to be deplored than the Saducean 
indifference of more modern times. 

We must not belittle or dismiss with 
a sneer these plain old country pastors 
of the early days. They lived isolated 
and obscure lives, but they were faith- 
ful, earnest and Godly men, and not a 
few of them, were very able men. Es- 
timated by results, they did a great 
work. Consider M'Millan, Dodd, 
Smith, and Henderson; Marquis, M' 
Curdy and Patterson; the two Ander- 
sons, French, Stockton, Eagleson, and 
many others of various branches of 
Presbyterianism in those early days; 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

men of education, ability and utter con- 
secration, who gave their lives to work 
in the woods, and yet see what came of 
it. They have long since gone to be 
with God, but their works do follow 
them. They are living and doing bus- 
iness in tens of thousands of lives all 
over the world, and multitudes have al- 
ready met them before the throne of 
God to thank them for their fidelity. 
Measured by the test of widely-ex- 
tended and enduring influence, it may 
be questioned if any metropolitan min- 
ister in the whole land was their peer. 
No faithful servant of Christ can tell 
what is to be the ultimate outcome of 
his life. The essential thing is that 
he do with his might the task given him 
by his Master, and as under that Mas- 
ter's eye. In fact there is nothing 



74 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AME RICA 

great or small but doing the will of 
God. 

These Scotch-Irish people had a 
great hunger for education, and the de- 
sire to give their children better ad- 
vantages than they had had themselves 
w^as central and dominant in all their 
purposes. These old pastors assid- 
uously encouraged this feeling and 
wisely guided it. They founded clas- 
sical schools called academies in many 
of their congregations, and thus gave 
encouragement and opportunity to 
young people who aimed at the higher 
education. Particularly did they lay 
on the conscience of their people the 
duty of dedicating the choicest of their 
sons to the ministry of the gospel at 
home or abroad. Consequently from 
almost every farm there was at least 
one boy who was set apart to go to col- 
75 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

lege, and it was a main part of the fam- 
ily purpose and plan to send him. 
Many of these boys were solemnly ded- 
icated to the sacred office before they 
were born, as Samuel was by his pious 
mother. Mothers bore sons for the 
ministry; fathers worked their hands 
to the bone to pay their way, and the 
entire family when necessary, prac- 
tised the closest economy and self-de- 
nial, and all rejoiced in the honor God 
had done them in choosing one of the 
boys for the holy office. What won- 
der that Washington and Jefferson 
College founded and sustained by these 
people, and fed by these parochial 
schools, should have had so great a 
part in Presbyterian and American his- 
tory? It is in place to ask whether 
there are now many such breeding- 
places and nesting-places of trained 

76 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 



and consecrated ministers and elders 
in these madly materialistic days? 
Has the great change in condition and 
conviction in this respect that has come 
in recent years, anything to do with the 
alarming reduction in the number of 
candidates for the ministry? Are 
there many communities where fathers 
and mothers wrestle with God for their 
sons before they are born, pleading 
that they may be chosen and qualified 
for His service anywhere in the world, 
however that service may bring hard- 
ship, obscurity and poverty, if only it 
contributes to the upbuilding of the 
Kingdom of God? Are pastors as 
earnest and vigilant in pressing this 
duty on their people, and in seeking 
out boys whom God may call to the 
sacred office, as were the pastors of our 
childhood and of our fathers? This 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

is worth thinking of. I take the con- 
gregation of my forbears simply as a 
sample of the genuine Scotch-Irish con- 
gregation of the early days in that sec- 
tion of the country. It was fairly typ- 
ical of multitudes of others. A cor- 
rect photograph of that community and 
that congregation needs only to be du- 
plicated to make it a correct picture of 
every section of the country where 
these people were dominant. I select 
that particular community as an illus- 
tration not only because it is, and from 
the first has been, one of the most de- 
cidedly Scotch-Irish communities in 
America, but also because I know it 
better than any other. I may be par- 
doned for saying that my people have 
been a part of it for more than a cen- 
tury and a quarter. I was born there, 
as my father was before me, and his 

78 



SCOTCH-IR ISH IN AMERICA 

father before him, and my great-grand- 
father came into that country when it 
was a wilderness, and when he was but 
thirty-two years old. The farms that 
he and his sons carved out of the for- 
est are in the hands of his lineal de- 
scendants to-day. If these sketches 
have strongly local, and even personal 
features, I trust it will be pardoned. 
Perhaps there is no better way of giv- 
ing a vivid impression of times and 
people than to describe particular 
neighborhoods and individuals, pro- 
vided these are fairly typical of the 
conditions and the people in general. 
My memory is full of the fireside and 
wayside tales related to me in my child- 
hood by my forbears, and others who 
were there in the earliest days. Every 
branch of the many divisions of strict 
Presbyterianism v/as represented by 
79 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

one or more congregations within ten 
miles of my birthplace. In no part 
of the country was the invincible pro- 
clivity of Presbyterians to divide on 
small issues more strikingly illustrated 
than among the Scotch-Irish of south- 
western Pennsylvania. The difference 
between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum 
was great in comparison with the dif- 
ferences between some of these numer- 
ous sects. Yet men would have been 
crucified for these points of difference. 
Often have I seen a man riding along 
the ridge above our farm on the Sab- 
bath morning on his way to a little 
gathering of Old-Side Covenanters, at 
least twelve miles from his home. 
Late in the evening he might be seen 
wending his way homeward, silent, 
saturnine, solemn, having done his duty 
as he saw it, and given his testimony. 
80 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 
On his way he passed within easy 
reach of several Presbyterian churches, 
some of them very closely allied to his 
own, yet he would have gone to the 
stake without a moment's hesitation for 
the difference between them and him. 

One of our near neighbors, head of 
a large and substantial family, one of 
the oldest and most respectable in the 
community, himself an elder in Buf- 
falo, had married in youth a woman 
who belonged to the Union church of 
Cross Roads. They lived together for 
fifty years or more, in great affection 
and comfort, yet they never went to 
church together. Many a time have 
I seen them ride side by side on horse- 
back to the top of the ridge where the 
roads forked, and there part, he tak- 
ing the left hand road to Buffalo and 
she the right hand road to Cross Roads 
8i 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and this they did during their entire 
lives. The sons went with their father, 
and the daughters with their mother. 
This was not an uncommon case. 
Within two or three miles of Upper 
Buffalo there was a Seceder congrega- 
tion, one of the most ancient in that 
section, about as old as Upper Buf- 
falo. It was a most strict and strenu- 
ous Seceder church. For forty-two 
years the Rev. David French was the 
pastor, a faithful, devoted and Godly 
man, but excessively narrow according 
to modern standards. He enforced 
close communion of the closest kind; 
nobody but a strict Seceder could come 
to the holy table in his church. He 
peremptorily forbade his people going 
to other places of worship when they 
had no service of their own. He was 
extremely protracted in his services, as 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

others of his persuasion were. He 
would explain the psalm for three- 
quarters of an hour, pray for the same 
length of time, and on special occasions 
longer, everybody standing, or pretend- 
ing to stand; he would preach for an 
hour and a half, and often much 
longer; the entire service requiring 
sometimes five hours. The psalms in 
Rouse's version were used exclusively, 
and always sung to the oldest tunes. 
The "clerk" read a line in a sing-song 
tone, then led the congregation in sing- 
ing it, when he recited another line in 
the same sing-song tone and in the key 
of the tune, sang this, and so on clear 
through. This was called "lining 
out," and so much importance was at- 
tached to it that when it was proposed 
to abandon the practice it was like to 
have created a revolution. It did not 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

occur to them that this "lining 
out" was very like the intoning of 
the Romish priest. No tune which re- 
quired repetition of the words was al- 
lowed. Anything like what musicians 
call a fugue would have raised a tem- 
pest. This they would have denoun- 
ced as vain repetitions which the 
heathen use. In fact the chief differ- 
ence between the Seceders and the reg- 
ular Presbyterians at that time was in 
respect to psalmody. The Presbyter- 
ians gradually adopted Watts Psalms 
and Hymns, which collection the Se- 
ceders denounced as human composi- 
tions, and utterly unauthorized. The 
debates about this resulted in breaking 
up congregations and setting whole 
neighborhoods by ears. Then these 
psalm-singing churches divided on 
other issues, and hence the Presbyter- 

84 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ians of the early settlements were much 
separated among themselves. 



8s 



CHAPTER VI 

The ancient church of my nativity 
and of my foregatherers, like all others 
of the time, was planted on a ridge in 
what was then a dense forest of giant 
trees; various kinds of oak, elm, beech, 
chestnut, hickory, walnut, poplar, 
sugar-maple, and such like; with many 
smaller growths, such as dogwood, sas- 
safras, sumach, spicewood, interlaced 
with a tangle of vines, ivy, wild-grape, 
and the like, making a jungle that in 
many places was almost impenetrable. 
The country was hilly, but generally 
free from rocks on the surface, and 
exceedingly fertile, abounding in 
springs, brooks and creeks. These 
original forests to one of aesthetic 
86 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

tastes, were superb. I have roamed 
through the vast forests of mighty red- 
wood on the Pacific Coast, and camped 
among trees sixteen to eighteen feet in 
diameter and two hundred to three 
hundred feet high : I have also seen the 
gigantea sequoia, of the Sierras, by far 
the most colossal growths on the earth; 
and while these are unspeakably impos- 
ing in size, and stateliness, and antiq- 
uity, and the forests are like immense 
and awe-inspiring cathedrals, yet for 
exquisite beauty, and gorgeous foliage 
in autumn, I have seen nothing finer 
than the original forests of southwest- 
ern Pennsylvania. Two generations of 
hardy men wore themselves out in 
clearing away these vast forests and 
making the magnificent farms now 
owned by their posterity. In fact they 
have overdone this. It is a thousand 

87 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

pities that the country has been so de- 
nuded of its glorious forests. This 
makes it look bare, prosaic and com- 
mon-place. Particularly is it a shame 
that the immediate surroundings of the 
old rural churches have been stripped 
so bare of trees. Judge Veech is right 
in saying that, "A treeless country 
church is worse than a tombless grave." 
All things considered, it would not 
be easy to find a richer section of the 
earth's surface than was the region we 
are now thinking of. The pioneer did 
not know how rich the country really 
was, any more than the old Californian 
that there were immense treasures of 
gold underneath his feet as he walked 
over the land. The early settler in 
southwestern Pennsylvania saw noth- 
ing and knew nothing of the immense 
layers of coal, the reservoirs of natural 
88 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

gas and oil beneath his feet as he 
tracked the forest. He saw only the 
fertile soil and well-watered country, 
covered with giant forests in the depths 
of which the panther and the savage 
had their lair. The Indian must be 
driven out and the forest cleared away 
before homes, schools, and churches 
could be established. Hence the for- 
ests, which now would be exceedingly 
valuable, were then a fearful incum- 
brance. The pioneer could not get 
room for his cabin or potato patch 
until he had made diligent use of his 
axe and grubbing hoe. The climate 
was far from ideal. The extremes of 
temperature were great, and the 
changes sudden and trying. In winter 
everything f reezable froze, and in sum- 
mer everything soluble melted. This 
added to the strenuousness of the Strug- 

89 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

gle in subduing the country. But the 
like is true of most sections of the globe 
where the human race has done its best 
work and made its greatest achieve- 
ments. A country where life is easy 
is not a good place to develop men, and 
is not the place where great things are 
done. 

In the heart of this region, and about 
eight miles northwest of the present 
town of Washington, was placed the 
church of which I write particularly. 
The church of Cross Creek, joined 
with it in the same charge, was located 
about ten miles to the north. For 
many years it was strictly a rural con- 
gregation, though within the last forty 
years or more, a small village has 
grown up around it. A similar vil- 
lage, somewhat older and larger, grew 
up around Cross Creek. The old 
90 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

county has quite a number of such vil- 
lages, made up largely of old people, 
widowed women and the like, who in 
their age and loneliness, snuggle up 
close to the church to spend their last 
days in quietness near the sanctuary 
and the graves of their people. For 
nearly the whole of the first hundred 
years of its history, the church had 
but three pastors, — Smith, Anderson 
and Eagleson, all of them able and 
faithful men, and the dust of all of 
them lies in the adjoining graveyard, 
with appropriate monuments erected 
by the people they served. It is an 
ancient and ill-kept churchyard, full 
of the bones of men and vv^omen who 
lived toilsome and obscure, but worthy 
and victorious lives, and who did a 
service for God and their country 
which has laid the whole land under 
91 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

obligations. There lies the dust of 
men who were slain in sight of their 
burning cabins while defending their 
wives and little ones from the ruth- 
less savage; there also the dust of offi- 
cers and soldiers of the Revolution ; 
there the ashes of mothers of men who 
have done great things for God and 
their country; there the bones of un- 
known and unhonored dead, some of 
whom were surely great in the sight 
of the Lord; there also, the remains of 
many noble men of my own time who 
gave their lives for their country in 
our great civil war. The graves of 
representatives of five generations of 
my own name and blood are there, and 
many others might say the same of 
theirs. 

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew- 
tree's shade, 

92 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Where heaves the turf in many a 

mould'ring heap ; 
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
The rude forefathers of the hamlet 

sleep. 

Let not Ambition mock their useful 
toil', 

Their homely joys, and destiny ob- 
scure; 

Nor Grandeur hear with disdainful 
smile 

The short and simple annals of the 
poor." 

The Rev. Joseph Smith was the first 
pastor. He was from York county. 
Pa., a graduate of Princeton, and 
visited the region in April 1779. The 
first minister who visited that im- 
mediate neighborhood was the Rev. 

93 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Matthew Henderson, who preached in 
the woods near where North Buffalo 
U. P. church now stands, as early as 
1775. In 1778 a Seceder congrega- 
tion was organized on that spot, and 
in October 1779, Mr. Henderson was 
called to be the pastor, in connection 
with Chartiers of the same commun- 
ion. North Buffalo is but three miles 
from Upper Buffalo, yet owing to dif- 
ferences mainly about psalmody, it 
was thought right to organize the two 
congregations in the wilderness quite 
close together. As early as 1775, the 
Rev. John M'Millan visited the neigh- 
borhood of what is now Canonsburg, 
but owing to Indian troubles did not 
permanently settle in that region till 
1778, when he became pastor of Char- 
tiers and Pigeon Creek. Rev. Thad- 
deus Dodd settled about the same time 
94 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

at Ten Mile Creek, a few miles away. 
M'Millan and Dodd, like Smith, were 
graduates of Princeton. All of them 
were able and scholarly men. I have 
before me as I write, the original 
Minute Book of Cross Creek and Up- 
per Buffalo, containing a copy of the 
call issued to Mr. Smith by those two 
congregations. It is dated June 21st, 
1779, and is signed by one hundred 
and sixteen names, most of them prob- 
ably heads of families. They were 
scattered over a widely extended re- 
gion of country. In the same book is 
a copy of a subscription paper with 
two hundred and nine names, and op- 
posite each name the amount pledged 
in pounds and shillings. Among these 
names we find those of the two Poe 
brothers, the famous Indian fighters of 
that day, and of subsequent history and 

95 



SCOTCH-IRIS H IN AMERICA 

romance. The whole amount of sal- 
ary pledged was one hundred and fifty 
pounds, and at the head of the paper 
is an explicit stipulation in the follow- 
ing words, "Whereas money has be- 
come of less value and every article 
has risen to an extravagant price, 
therefore we do hereby agree that the 
said sums shall annually be regulated 
by five men chosen in each congrega- 
tion, and shall be made equal in value 
to what said sums would have been in 
1774." The war of the Revolution 
was going on, currency was greatly de- 
preciated, prices were extremely high, 
and hence the necessity of the above 
provision. Mr. Smith continued pas- 
tor of these two congregations until 
April 1792, when, dying suddenly of 
brain fever, he entered into rest. He 
was a remarkably eloquent and fervent 

96 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

man, of the deepest spiritual earnest- 
ness, and a preacher of uncommon 
pungency and power. Many tradi- 
tions of his startling and powerful elo- 
quence in the pulpit still linger in that 
region. He was the progenitor of sev- 
eral useful ministers, the Rev. James 
Power Smith, D. D. of Richmond, 
Va., one of the leading ministers in the 
Southern Church, being his great- 
grandson. Many a time have I sat 
on the broad slab vv'hich covers his 
tomb in the old churchyard, and read 
the long inscription written by his 
scholarly friend and fellow-worker, 
Rev. Thaddeus Dodd. 

In a log cabin in the deep woods on 
his farm near Buffalo, Mr. Smith set 
up a classical school, and in it were 
trained not a few men for the ministry, 
some of them rather notable, one be- 

97 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ing the Rev. James M'Gready, the real 
founder of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church, though he never joined 
it himself. This M'Gready was an 
old Buffalo boy, and very notable in 
his day. 

When the war of the Revolution 
closed, the finances of the country were 
in a most deplorable state, as the con- 
tinental money was nearly worthless, 
and coin was exceedingly scarce and 
hard to get. The salary of Mr. Smith 
fell into arrears and for several years 
was not paid. The situation became 
acute, and at length the question of 
meeting their obligations to their pas- 
tor had to be squarely faced by the peo- 
ple. He could not go on as things 
were. They must support him or lose 
him. The farmers had plenty of 
wheat, but no money, and no way of 

98 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

getting any. The only accessible mar- 
ket where they could get cash for their 
wheat or flour was New Orleans, two 
thousand miles away by the winding 
Ohio and Mississippi. Meetings were 
held and much prayer was offered up 
to God. The people were heart- 
broken at thought of losing their be- 
loved pastor, and yet what could they 
do? Plenty of wheat was offered, and 
the miller down by the Ohio river, 
twelve miles away, was willing to turn 
it into flour, but how to get the flour 
to market, was the question. Who 
would undertake the long and perilous 
journey in a flat-boat, with the flour 
and bring back the money? At last, 
an aged elder, a Mr. William Smiley, 
stood up and said, "I will go if you will 
engage two strong young men to go 
with me." It was a bold act of faith 

99 

LOFa . 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

in the old man, but he was resolute to 
make his offer good. By the promise 
of a large reward, two young men were 
persuaded to accompany him. It was 
a great and solemn undertaking. The 
entire distance was through an almost 
unpeopled solitude, except as the wil- 
derness swarmed with savages. There 
was no way of return except by row- 
ing up the mighty river, or travelling 
the whole distance on foot through the 
forests, subsisting as best they might. 
All this old Father Smiley and the 
people well knew, but they did not 
flinch. The farmers carried their 
wheat to the mill by the river near 
where the town of Wellsburg, West 
Virginia, now stands; it was made into 
flour and placed on board a large flat- 
boat, or scow, built for the purpose. 
When the day appointed for starting 

lOO 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

came, the people assembled from far 
and near in a great company; solemn 
religious services were held and the 
weeping people commended their 
friends and their enterprise to God. 
The aged elder stepped aboard with 
his two helpers, gave the order to cut 
loose, and away they floated on the 
bosom of the mighty river. Weeks 
and months went by, and no tidings 
from the absent voyageurs. Whenever 
the people assembled for worship, fer- 
vent prayer was offered up to God in 
their behalf. In the homes of the peo- 
ple, when the father of his house gath- 
ered his family at the morning and 
evening altar, the protection of the 
Lord was fervently besought to be with 
Father Smiley and his enterprise. 
Little children as they knelt by their 
beds, were taught to lisp the name of 

lOI 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Father Smiley, and earnestly ask their 
Father in heaven to prosper the old 
elder, to guard him and return him 
in safety and peace. Aged saints as 
they went out into the thickets to pray, 
poured out their supplications in the 
same behalf. Nine weary and anxious 
months went by, and at length one 
Sabbath morning when the people as- 
sembled for worship, there in his ac- 
customed place in front of the pulpit, 
sat the sturdy old elder. He would 
give no particular account of his jour- 
ney, for it was the Sabbath, but told 
the people that if they would assemble 
on a week day, he would tell them all. 
Now he would only say, that he and 
his helpers had safely reached their 
destination, had found a good market, 
and had walked the entire distance 
home, carrying with them a large sum 

I02 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

in gold. The people with songs, and 
prayers, and tears, thanked God for 
having prospered the errand of his 
venerable servant, and for having re- 
turned him in safety from his long and 
perilous journey. He brought with 
him money enough to pay all arrears 
and leave a handsome balance in the 
treasury. This plain old Scotch-Irish 
farmer was one of God's genuine he- 
roes. His name appears in no roll of 
earthly fame, but doubtless it shines 
with peculiar lustre in the roll of saints 
and heroes which is kept in heaven. 
For more than a hundred years, his 
grave has been in the old churchyard 
quite near that of the pastor whom he 
so deeply loved, and for whose com- 
fort he was willing to do and to dare 
so much. Many a time since, no 
doubt, in the celestial Paradise, they 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

have talked it all over together. His 
descendants have been in the same 
church ever since, and some of them 
are there to~day. However modest and 
even humble their station in life, surely 
they have royal blood in their veins. 
The question might here be raised, 
how many men are there in our great 
Church to-day who would undertake 
an enterprise of equal magnitude and 
danger, in order to get money to pay 
arrears in their pastor's salary, or to 
keep a church going in the wilderness, 
or anywhere else for that matter? 

The old Minute Book referred to 
above contains a copy of the deed con- 
veying the land on which the church 
stands, together with quite a large tract 
around it. The consideration was 
"two ears of corn." The first two 
buildings were rude log structures, the 
104 



SCOTCH-IRISH I N AMERICA 

third a large barn-like structure of 
brick, and now for more than thirty 
years, there has stood on the same spot 
a rather stately building of brick and 
stone, a memorial to the departed. 



105 



CHAPTER VII 

Many sacred and holy memories 
cluster round that historic spot, as in- 
deed round all the ancient churches in 
that region. At Buffalo the great re- 
vival at the beginning of the last cen- 
tury had its climacteric, so far at least 
as that general section of the counti*y 
was concerned. It is safe to say that 
by far the greatest and most general 
religious awakening this country ever 
knew, vv^as during the first five or six 
years of the nineteenth century. 
Judged by its accompaniments and 
consequences, by its immediate and re- 
sultant effects, it marked a veritable 
epoch in the history of this country. 
The period following the Revolution- 
ary War was one of great religious de- 
io6 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

clension and moral degeneracy. French 
Infidelity and English Deism seemed 
to have taken the land. Many of the 
leading public men were disciples of 
the one or the other. Earnest religion 
was mocked at by many of the more 
intelligent classes. Colleges, like Har- 
vard, Yale and Princeton, had hardly 
a professing Christian among their stu- 
dents. Many pulpits had fallen into a 
halting, hesitating and half-hearted 
declaration of evangelical truth, or had 
ceased to declare it at all. Times were 
hard, money nearly worthless, political 
and other strifes were rampant; per- 
sonal and social morals were at a low 
ebb, and in general, the mood of the 
people was sceptical, bitter and reck- 
less. In fact, it seemed that Baal ruled 
the land. But there were the seven 
thousand in Israel who had never 
107 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

bowed the knee to him. Yet these, as 
of old, were cowed, suppressed and 
hidden out of sight. However, 
through all, they unceasingly cried 
unto God with strong entreaties and 
tears, and at length their cry was 
heard, and the Lord God of Elijah 
answered by fire. Then came a great 
and mighty revival of evangelical 
religion which extended over the 
whole of the country then settled, 
from New England through the At- 
lantic states to the Carolinas, Geor- 
gia and Tennessee, as well as among 
the newer settlements in Ohio, Ken- 
tucky, and to the westward and 
southwestward. It brought a very 
great and lasting change to the relig- 
ious life and the moral condition of 
this whole country. It is not easy to 
fix precisely the spot where this great 
io8 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

revival had its first manifestation. It 
seems that the sacred fire w^as kindled 
at several widely separated points at 
about the same time. The region of 
which I am writing was one of these 
points, and certainly one of the very 
earliest points where this great awak- 
ening began. Some painstaking his- 
torians have traced the very earliest 
manifestations of this movement to the 
congregation of Cross Roads, now 
Florence, in Washington county, Pa., 
and to Philip Jackson, who was called 
the "praying elder" in that ancient 
congregation. Whether this is so or 
not, one thing is certain, in the woods 
round the old log meeting-house at 
Upper Buffalo, was held what was 
probably the most remarkable camp- 
meeting ever known in America. It 
was in October, 1802, when the sur- 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

rounding country was as yet but sparse- 
ly settled, and still mostly a vast forest; 
and yet, there gathered together in the 
wilderness a concourse of above ten 
thousand people, coming from all dis- 
tances within a radius of a hundred 
miles, on foot, on horseback, in clumsy 
vehicles, bringing provisions with 
them, and tarrying for many days. 
There were a score or more of minis- 
ters present, and services were held al- 
most continuously all day and far into 
the night, sometimes all night. The 
preaching was all done by authorized 
ministers. These people believed that 
women should keep silence in the 
church, and laymen very rarely ad- 
dressed worshipping assemblies. It is 
worthy of remark that in the most ex- 
tensive, the most powerful, and the 
most transforming revival of religion 
no 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

this country ever knew, none of the 
sensational methods of modern services 
of this kind were used at all. No 
doubt times have changed, and modern 
methods may be required by modern 
conditions, but at the same time it may 
be a question whether our Lord and 
His Apostles were not quite up to their 
own times, and to all times, in the 
methods they used and authorized. 
This is a very wise and very enterpris- 
ing age, but possibly it is not greatly 
wiser and more enterprising than our 
Lord, and His Apostles. One thing is 
certain, the great religious revivals of 
history, those awakenings which have 
permanently transformed communi- 
ties, nations and races, have invariably 
been conducted on apostolic and prim- 
itive lines. Modern evangelism, with 
all its provision for paid evangelists, 
III 



SCOTCH -IRISH IN AMERICA 

its newspaper advertising, its proces- 
sions and brass-bands, its sensations 
and trips through the slums, may fall 
in with modern methods, and get glory 
for its leaders, but whether this 
builds up the kingdom of God, and 
really saves lost men, may be a ques- 
tion for serious and enlightened Chris- 
tians. The great awakening of which 
I am VN^riting continued for sev- 
eral years, and during that time 
the whole country was transformed. 
It was not the invasion of a 
community by a lot of so-called evan- 
gelists, who must have the way pre- 
pared beforehand, who go only into 
places where strong churches exist, but 
it was the result of faithful work by 
pastors and other Christian people, in 
the use of the ordinary and prescribed 
means of grace. Such was the great 

112 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

awakening which continued for sev- 
eral years, and transformed the whole 
country. For many years, evangelical 
religion was the chief, the absorbing 
interest of the majority of the people. 
Looking back now we can see how that 
great revival saved pure religion in 
this land. Not only were the churches 
greatly strengthened and multiplied, 
but unbelief and immorality were ef- 
fectively rebuked, the mood and habit 
of the people were permanently 
changed, and out of it grew the great 
missionary movement of modern times, 
in this country. Mission Boards, Bi- 
ble Societies, Tract Societies, Sabbath- 
schools, multitudes of Christian schools 
and colleges, the temperance move- 
ment, and many other such great agen- 
cies of evangelism and reform, were 
the direct product of that great revival. 

113 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

I repeat, it marked a veritable epoch 
in American history. Undoubtedly it 
was a mighty work of the Spirit of 
God, but as always happens in such a 
case, Satan entered in to pervert, coun- 
terfeit and counterwork the work of 
God. With the veritable sacred fire 
came much wildfire. Extravagances 
and fanaticisms flamed out on every 
side, and there came bitter controver- 
sies and contentions by which the peo- 
ple of God were broken up into hostile 
and belligerent factions. Out of these 
controversies came the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church, the Christian, or 
Campbellite, body, and many other 
separations. But after all, the results 
were immensely great, valuable and 
enduring. It can be easily shown that 
the Scotch-Irish ministers and people 

TT4 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

were the main promoters of this great 
work. 

These old pastors were paid but 
scanty salaries. The pastor of my own 
childhood and youth had for a long 
time no more than five hundred dol- 
lars a year, and this was paid him in a 
lump at the close of the year. How 
he was expected to live in the mean- 
time, I do not know. Probably he was 
treated quite as generously, or better 
said, no more stingily than other min- 
isters in that general region. For the 
most part these congregations were 
made up of thrifty farmers not one in 
ten of whom was in debt except as he 
kept in debt by buying more land and 
yet such pitiful sums they deemed suffi- 
cient for the support of able and faith- 
ful pastors. As a rule these pastors 
managed to live decently on such in- 
II.5 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

comes, raise large families and educate 
them. With all their fine traits these 
Scotch-Irish were not remarkable for 
liberal dealing in money matters. 
They were apt to be excessively care- 
ful and close in such matters. It 
ought to be said however that they had 
but little ready money and what they 
had came from hard and persevering 
toil. Fifty cents a day or less paid the 
wage of a farm hand. Farmers would 
raise their wheat, reap it with a sickle, 
thresh it with a flail, have it made into 
flour, paying one-tenth for toll, then 
haul it to Pittsburgh, a three days' 
journey, and sell it for two to three 
dollars a barrel. The people in gen- 
eral fared abundantly at their own ta- 
bles, for their farms and gardens 
yielded plentifully, but their cash in- 
come was very small. Nearly every- 
ii6 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

thing that the people ate, drank, or 
wore was the direct result of their own 
industry. I now refer to the earliest 
times, and for a good many years after 
they settled in the country. The flax 
was raised, cured, carded, spun and 
woven into fabrics which were made 
up into garments for household use. 
So with the wool. The hides of their 
cattle were tanned by themselves, and 
once a year, the shoemaker would 
come round, stopping in the house for 
a week or more, and make the year's 
supply of shoes for the entire family. 
All the supplies of the table except tea, 
coffee, spices and the like, were the 
produce of their own fields and gar- 
dens. In the early days even tea and 
coffee were but rarely used. They did 
without coffee, and tea was made of 
sassafras, spicewood, and other barks 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and herbs. Salt and pepper were 
hard to get and sparingly used. Most 
things that they must have they some- 
how managed to get from the field, the 
forest or the stream. Once a year, 
some man of the settlement would 
make a pilgrimage over the mountains 
to Carlisle, to bring back a supply of 
salt, iron, powder, lead, and such spices 
as they must have. Neighbors would 
send their boys along under his guid- 
ance over the trail, each with a string 
of pack-horses. I have heard my 
grandfather tell of making such pil- 
grimages when a small boy, with sev- 
eral packhorses in tow. Little wonder 
that they made careful use of what 
was so hard to get. 

Everybody except the very aged and 
infirm went regularly to church. If 
any man did not go, he was looked at 
ii8 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

askance as some sort of Ishmaelite or 
Philistine, and deemed hardly safe to 
associate with. No matter how rough 
the weather nor how bad the roads, nor 
how long the distance, everybody went 
on the Sabbath day. I can recall 
many a time when a very small boy, 
sticking like a big bug on a horse be- 
hind my grandfather, and riding three 
miles to church of a bitter winter 
morning, when the horse waded 
through deep snow, or floundered 
through stiffest mud, or stumbled over 
roughest clods, and we were always in 
time for Sabbath-school at nine 
o'clock. Our fathers kept the Sabbath 
according to the commandment as ex- 
pounded in the Larger and Shorter 
Catechisms. This was sometimes 
rather irksome to a restless and unsanc- 
tified boy, but there was much ultimate 
119 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

good in it. Like many another afflic- 
tion, for the present it was not joyous, 
but grievous; nevertheless afterwards 
it yielded the peaceable fruits of right- 
eousness.- Looking back now after 
sixty years of varied experience have 
come and gone, how soft, how silent, 
how sweet and restful those old-time 
Sabbaths seem! The memory of them 
has rested like a mellow benediction on 
all the intervening years. The plow 
stood still in the furrow; the weary 
horses fed ankle deep in pastures, or 
stood with their long necks over the 
gate in luxurious rest; cows and oxen 
with their great, soft eyes, lay quietly 
in the shade of. oaks or hickories, con- 
tentedly chewing the cud, while lambs 
gambolled on the green hillsides; all 
so peaceful, so soothing, so sacred. 
Very many grey-headed men and wo- 

120 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

men now widely separated in the 
world, some in high places, some 
in humble, recall with deep and ten- 
der emotion the memory of those 
far-away arcadian scenes. Amid the 
rush and roar, the tumult and tur- 
moil, the wild strifes, passions and con- 
fusions of modern life, how sweet, and 
soft, and restful, how sacred and holy, 
the memory of the quiet summer Sab- 
baths of our childhood and of our fa- 
thers. 

Possibly they may have been over- 
strict; very likely they were. When 
a small boy, if by any chance I forgot 
and let out a little whistle on the holy 
day I was instantly startled and 
shocked at myself, and looked round 
rather expecting the heavens to fall or 
some other terrible thing to happen. 
All books not strictly religious were 

121 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

put away. The Bible, the Confession 
of Faith, Baxter's Saints Rest, Al- 
lein's Alarm, Doddridge's Rise and 
Progress, Watts Psalms and Hymns, 
and such like exhilarating books were 
allowable. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress was permissible, as a sort of 
breeze from the mountains. It is cer- 
tain that nearly everyone of our cur- 
rent religious weeklies would have 
been placed under the ban, and by far 
the greater part of the books found in 
our Sunday-school libraries. 

No matter how busy the season nor 
how hard the farmers were pressed 
with their work, on the Saturday eve- 
ning everything came to a full stop, 
and there stood till Monday morning. 
As far as possible, all preparations for 
the day were made beforehand. No 
baking or needless cooking was al- 

122 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

lowed on the sacred day. My grand- 
father and my father always went 
clean shaven, yet I do not believe that 
so much as once in all their long lives 
did either of them ever shave on the 
Lord's Day. I cannot recall ever hav- 
ing seen any one in that community at 
any kind of worldly work or amuse- 
ment on the Sabbath. When as a 
young minister in Wisconsin, I saw a 
picnic going on, and heard a band 
play within a short distance of where I 
was holding service on the Lord's 
Day, I was shocked beyond speech. I 
had never before seen anything of that 
kind. Once a pious neighbor of ours 
got wrong in his reckoning and went 
out to his plow on the Sabbath morn- 
ing, thinking it was Saturday. Seeing 
people pass on their way to church, 
and learning his mistake, he was like 
123 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

to have had a fit of epilepsy. He was 
as much confounded as if he had been 
caught stealing sheep. Swiftly he 
drove his horses to the barn, unhitched 
and unharnessed, and rushed to the 
church in his working garb, his head 
full of confusion, his heart full of pen- 
itence, and his mouth full of explana- 
tions and apologies. He was forgiven 
by others, but it may be doubted 
whether he ever forgave himself. 

Family worship every morning and 
evening was always leisurely and es- 
pecially on the Sabbath, lengthy. 
There was the reading of a full chap- 
ter however long; the singing of a 
psalm or hymn clear through, and a 
comprehensive prayer, all devoutly 
kneeling. Ah me, how significant a 
service was that! No wonder that 
Robert Burns, wild and dissipated as 
124 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

he was, was so deeply moved when he 
wrote his exquisite lyric, 'The Cotter's 
Saturday Night." What holy mem- 
ories and influences of the unforgotten 
living and the no less unforgotten 
dead, connect themselves with that sa- 
cred custom! The father, possibly the 
grey-headed grandfather, gathering 
his household on their knees round the 
altar of their Covenant God! What 
a protection for the present, what a 
prophecy for the future! How sad it 
is that this holy and blessed ordinance 
has so dropped out of the hurly-burly 
of our modern life. Nine o'clock 
found us in Sabbath-school, whatever 
the weather or the roads. The class 
work consisted almost wholly in read- 
ing from the Bible and in memorizing 
long passages of scripture and hymns. 
This may seem very crude in the light 
125 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

of modern methods, but it had certain 
great advantages. It lodged large 
numbers of hymns and large por- 
tions of scripture safely in the 
memory, and saved the children 
from the raw, silly, and mis- 
leading instruction they sometimes 
receive now. It gave a ready fa- 
miliarity with the very language of the 
Bible and of standard hymns which 
could never be lost. Some years ago, I 
spent two weeks in the same house with 
the late Major-General Irvin M'Dow- 
ell of the United States Army. He 
was a very eminent and meritorious 
officer, but in some respects an unfor- 
tunate one. It was he who was forced 
by public outcry, to fight prematurely 
the first battle of Bull Run. He was a 
most interesting man, and one of the 
race we are thinking of. He went to 
126 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

his grave under the shadow of a vile 
slander which was widely published 
about him after the battle of Bull Run. 
It was published and generally be- 
lieved that he was drunk that day, and 
lost the battle in consequence. He 
never stooped to deny the wicked slan- 
der. The fact was that he was a rigid 
total abstainer, and had been all his 
life. I was surprised at his ready 
familiarity with the Bible. He 
seemed to know the book from begin- 
ning to end, and could quote from it 
with wonderful point and pertinence. 
At length I expressed my gratification, 
and in fact, my wonder at finding one 
who had spent his life in camps and 
army posts, and who yet had so extra- 
ordinary a familiarity with the holy 
scriptures. He answered me by say- 
ing, that he had been brought up in the 
127 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

church and Sabbath-school of Dr. 
James Hoge, the Presbyterian patri- 
arch of Ohio, and he added, "Where- 
ever you find one of dear old Doctor 
Hoge's boys, you will be apt to find 
one who knows his Bible and Cate- 
chism," 

Between Sabbath-school and public 
service there was a short interval, dur- 
ing which, if the weather was pleasant, 
boys and younger men would stand or 
stroll about among the trees, surrepti- 
tiously talking crops, politics, or neigh- 
borhood gossip. Meanwhile the wo- 
men and more sedate men would pass 
into the church. At first sound of the 
opening service, these groups in the 
grove vv^ould make a rush for the 
church, and go thundering down the 
uncarpeted aisles in their farmer boots, 

128 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

making as much noise as a drove of 
horses. 

The singing was led by four men 
called "clerks," or "clarks," who stood 
in a row on a little raised platform in 
front of the pulpit, and facing the con- 
gregation. There was no musical in- 
strument of any kind, and the proposal 
to introduce one would have raised a 
tempest. In the Seceder and Cove- 
nanter congregations nothing was used 
but Rouse's version of the psalms, and 
the number of tunes was very limited. 
In the regular Presbyterian churches, 
Watts Hymns and Psalms were al- 
lowed, though the old version was 
much used. These clerks had no mu- 
sic in their books, and probably few of 
them could have read it if it had been 
before them. They took turn about in 
"raising" the tune, and quite often the 
129 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

clerk started in apparently without hav- 
ing any particular tune clearly in his 
mind, or at least without having any 
firm grip on it, and so he would amble 
along and wabble about until some- 
times he got to the second or third 
line before it became clear to the peo- 
ple, to his fellow-clerks, or even to 
himself precisely what tune he was 
headed for. By that time he usually 
struck something in the way of tune, 
and if it happened to be of the right 
metre and anywhere near the right 
key, his fellow-clerks would strike in, 
followed by the entire congregation, 
and then there would be a mighty vol- 
ume of sound. If the metre did not 
fit, or if the pitch was impossible, as 
often happened, then all hands 
stopped; there was a clearing of 
throats on the little platform, possibly 
130 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

a blowing of noses, with more or less 
expectoration, and then a fresh start 
was made. This was kept up till suc- 
cess was achieved. There was never 
final failure. That was not in the 
Scotch-Irishman's creed. When the 
clerks all broke down, as I have seen 
happen, then some veteran singer in 
the congregation would lilt up the 
tunc. 

Practically everybody sang, or made 
a stagger at singing, and if it was not 
in the highest style of art, it was at 
least loud and hearty. Here and there 
over the congregation, you might hear 
the shrill and fife-like voice of some 
dear old saintly woman singing "coun- 
ter", her shivering falsetto cutting its 
way sharply through the volume of all 
other sounds. Connoisseurs, if any had 
been present, would have curled the 

131 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

lip and stopped their ears, but I fancy 
that this worship pleased the angels 
and the Lord very well, for it was the 
best the people had to ofifer, and it was 
at least deeply sincere and devotional. 



T32 



CHAPTER VIII 

The preaching was always closely 
scriptural and often exceedingly 
searching and solemn. Of course, I 
never heard the first generation of 
preachers, nor even the second; they 
were all dead before I was born; but 
many of them must have been men of 
extraordinary power in the pulpit. 
There were no newspapers to tell of 
their eloquence, but the traditions and 
the enduring effects produced by their 
preaching testify to its power. The 
preachers of my boyhood were really 
the third generation, but they were of 
the old type. I have heard many of 
those accounted the greatest preachers 
in the world in my time, but I delib- 
U3 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

erately say, that for the purposes of 
Christian preaching, much that I used 
to hear from my old pastor. Dr. Eag- 
leson, and from his nearest neighbor, 
Dr. Stockton, was not far below the 
best I ever heard. Many a time have I 
been melted to tears by the pathos, and 
many a time been made to tremble in 
my bones by the pungent and powerful 
appeals, of these men of God. Un- 
doubtedly they were great in the sight 
of the Lord. Mothers brought their 
young children to the services, else 
they could not have come themselves, 
as they had no servants to leave them 
with, and as they did not believe in 
race suicide, the children were many. 
These little people often made a great 
deal of noise in the services by their 
crowing and crying. It was not at all 
uncommon to hear half a dozen of 

134 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

them in full outcry at the same time. 
This would break up a modern congre- 
gation, and drive the modern city 
preacher mad, but on the old pastor of 
my childhood it had no more appar- 
ent effect than if it had been the twit- 
tering of birds in the adjoining grove, 
or the honking of wild-geese a thou- 
sand feet overhead. If a youngster 
became too obstreperous, and was old 
enough to know better, his mother 
would snatch him up with a sudden 
jerk, and despite his struggles and 
screams, drag him down the aisle to 
the door, and out of it, her face mean- 
while flushed and bearing the aspect 
of great determination, a sure prophe- 
cy of what was coming to that young- 
ster, whence she would swiftly bear 
him to a bench that always stood con- 
veniently placed under a big tree near 
135 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

the open windows of the church, and 
forthwith you might hear the rapid 
and stinging patter of a motherly hand 
descending on the broadest part of 
helpless and shrieking childhood, min- 
gled with the most piercing outcries 
and half articulate promises of better 
behavior in the future. After a time 
she would re-enter the church with the 
calm and composed air of one who had 
done and well done, a disagreeable 
duty, the little one meekly toddling by 
her side completely subdued for the 
time. There are men whom I have 
met in high places in Church and 
State, whom I have seen on former 
days pass through this discipline, no 
doubt to their passing pain, but proba- 
bly to their lasting profit. 

During prayers, however long, 
everybody except the very aged and in- 
136 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

firm was expected to stand. There 
was usually a good deal of squirming, 
and twisting, and lounging about on 
the part of many persons. Not a few 
men had the habit of facing round, 
placing one foot on the bench, elbow 
on knee, chin in hand, and gazing 
steadily and contentedly into the faces 
of those behind. I used to be fearful- 
ly bored in this way by a certain pair 
of very bright and twinkling old eyes 
long since closed in death. 

In due time came the "intermission," 
which was a recess of half an hour or 
so before the afternoon service. Near- 
ly all the people would retire from the 
church and scatter about through the 
grove, some going to the nearby pump, 
while others strolled off to a further 
spring, meanwhile "eating their 
piece," as they called taking their 
137 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

luncheon. Elders and other sedate 
men would stand apart alone, or in lit- 
tle groups, silently meditating, or 
gravely conversing on pious subjects. 
The lads and lasses would be apt to 
wander off under the shade of stately 
trees, sidling up to one another in shy 
and awkward coquetry, thus furtively 
keeping company a little, and probably 
laying the foundation for closer rela- 
tions later. Some of the older women 
would remain devoutly in the church, 
quietly, munching crackers, cookies 
and bits of cheese, meanwhile piously 
meditating. These were for the most 
part mothers, more often grandmothers 
in Israel, but not a few of them were 
aged virgins who had never been 
wedded to any one but Jesus Christ. 
Among these last were found some of 
the most excellent of the earth, women 

138 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

who had worn out their lives for 
others' good. Dear, old, simple- 
minded, life-worn saints! How clear- 
ly their calm, meek, patient faces, 
bleached and wrinkled by the toil and 
exposure of many years, rise before me 
now after all this lapse of time ! Long 
ago their aged bodies were turned to 
dust in the churchyard adjoining, and 
their humble, pious and chastened 
souls ascended into the Eternal Pres- 
ence, where they are forever before the 
throne of that Gracious Lord, Whom, 
through all their heavy-laden lives, 
they so deeply loved and so reverent- 
ly and faithfully served. Peace to 
their ashes. Honor to their memories. 
The half hour soon passed, all too 
soon for some of the young people who 
were getting into closer companion- 
ship, and the congregation assembled 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

for the afternoon service. In the warm 
summer weather this was apt to be 
a rather drowsy time. Hard work- 
ing farmers simply could not keep 
awake, try they never so hard. Some- 
times a bronzed and sturdy farmer in 
his shirt-sleeves would stand bolt up- 
right in the midst of the congregation 
for fifteen minutes, in order to shake 
off his oncoming languor. Looking 
over the assembly after the service had 
got well under way, one might see 
many here and there, in more or less 
sound slumber, and in many varying 
attitudes. Some sunk down in a sort 
of heap, as limp as a bag of clothes 
ready for the laundry; some crouched 
in the pew with head forward and chin 
on bosom; some bent forward with 
chin on staff; others with head lolling 
far over on shoulder. Here, for in- 
140 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

stance, is a venerable elder sitting bolt 
upright for a time, gazing steadily at 
the preacher and meaning in his heart 
to be an example to the flock by keep- 
ing awake. But, by and by, the sub- 
tle influence stealthily creeps over him, 
he begins to stare languidly into va- 
cancy, his eyelids droop and finally 
close, his head slowly falls back, his 
nose points to the zenith, his mouth 
opens wide, and his breathing becomes 
a soft and solemn snore. He is dead to 
the world and the world is dead to 
him. Presently something, it may be 
a busy and bewildered fly, or a fleck 
of saliva, or possibly a little quid of 
tobacco drops into his throttle, when 
there is a sudden and violent start, 
probably a loud snort; his spectacles 
fall from his forehead, his Bible from 
his hand, his stafif from between his 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

knees, while five hundred pairs of eyes 
are focused upon him. Forthwith he 
shakes himself together and goes on to 
make divers other motions and noises, 
as if it ought to be plain that he was 
only shifting his position, shuffling his 
feet, coughing, blowing his nose, or 
some such allowable thing. But no- 
body is fooled by that at all. Every- 
body knows what is the matter with 
him. 

At last the services of the day come 
to a close, and then what a whinnying 
of hungry horses, and rattling of vehi- 
cles, and chattering of neighbors as the 
people scatter under the rays of the de- 
clining sun, and go streaming along all 
roads and across all fields to their 
homes. On arrival there, an ample 
meal was served as soon as possible, 
and then came an hour which to lusty 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

youngsters and to unregenerate people 
generally, was a good deal of a bore, 
for all about the place must appear be- 
fore the master of the household, and 
recite the Shorter Catechism. The 
evening was quietly and piously spent, 
and the next morning found the family 
rested and refreshed for another week 
of toil. There are many people, and 
some of them may read this book, who 
scoff at the simplicity and strictness of 
our fathers especially as regards the 
observance of the Sabbath. They 
mock at what they stigmatize as the 
narrowness, the bigotry and the gloom 
of our forefathers. Very well : let 
them mock and make merry if they 
will. Truth and reality are always 
narrow in the estimation of dreamers, 
fanatics, Saducees, and loose-livers gen- 
erally. To such, every earnest man, 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

every man who deeply believes that he 
will be called to a strict account for the 
way he lives, every man of strong 
moral conviction and of a downright 
and strenuous moral purpose, is a 
bigot. The way that leads to life has 
evermore been narrow, while that 
which leads to death has evermore 
been broad. The one is easy to go in, 
the other not so easy; he who would 
find // must gird up his loins and look 
well to his goings. Men who are bent 
on living as they please are apt to be 
prompt and sweeping in denouncing 
as bigots those who are governed by 
strict principles in regard to the Sab- 
bath, or anything else. No doubt, the 
Sabbath of our Puritan and Presby- 
terian forefathers was a very sober, se- 
rious and solemn day. Perhaps those 
features of it were somewhat overdone. 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

But it is not bad for a man, nor 
for society to have one day in seven 
that is sober , and even solemn. It 
hurts no man to be brought up with a 
sharp turn one day in seven, to have an 
arrest put on his worldly activities, to 
be compelled by the very situation, to 
shut off steam and bank down the fires 
of his secular ambition, and look quiet- 
ly and squarely on the things which 
concern his eternal destiny and doom. 
Besides, it was not usually a day of 
gloom to any one who had the least 
insight into its purpose or the least 
sympathy with the things of the spirit. 
It was a great boon especially to those 
whose daily burden was very heavy, 
and whose daily toil was very hard. 
It brought one day in the week as a 
secure interval of sweet rest and 
blessed quiet in the midst of the wear- 
H5 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ing toil and sore struggle of life. The 
commonest drudge, the very slave 
could say to his master, this day is not 
yours, it is the Lord's, and is secured 
to me as a day of rest and worship. 
The dusty farm-hand, the grimy miner, 
who washed and dressed himself in 
plain but clean garb, and walked to 
church with his family, and spent the 
rest of the day in fellowship with God 
and his dear ones, was a better man all 
the week for it. Most of all, it gave 
the opportunity and furnished the in- 
centive for reflection on one's ways, 
meditation on the higher ends of ex- 
istence, and for the worship of God 
and communion with Him, and all the 
saints on earth and in heaven. 

Every institution, like every tree, 
may fairly be judged by its fruits. 
This was the Master's challenge. 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

What does it do for the individual, the 
family, the country? Judged by this 
test, we are willing to set up the Sab- 
bath of our fathers (better say, the 
Sabbath of the Lord), as against the 
Sunday picnic, the beer garden, and 
the place of carousal. Which nour- 
ishes the stronger, nobler, more over- 
coming men and women? Which 
sends more men to the police court, to 
jail, to the penitentiary? Which fur- 
nishes the greater number of jaded, 
wasted and ruined lives? Which pre- 
pares people better for Monday morn- 
ing, and for the work of the week? 
for the duties of life, and for the des- 
tinies of eternity? There are many 
now as there were of old, who spend 
their money for that which is not bread, 
and their labor for that which satis- 
fieth not; and it is just as true now as 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

it was then, that they who wait on the 
Lord shall renew their strength. 

Lord Macaulay tells us that the 
Cavaliers of England laughed at the 
strictness and sanctimoniousness of 
our Presbyterian forefathers, but he 
adds, that when they met these men 
in the halls of debate or on the field 
of battle, they had little cause to laugh. 
Even so, smart writers and loose-livers 
have had no little fun with our Scotch- 
Irish ancestors, but when they have 
come to try strength with these people 
on any real battlefield of life, they have 
not felt half so funny: in fact, they 
have not felt funny at all. 



148 



CHAPTER IX 

During each year there were several 
occasions of special interest and so- 
lemnity in these old congregations. 
Next to nothing was made of Christ- 
mas, and nothing whatever of Easter. 
Rome had made much of these, and so 
our forbears would have nothing to do 
with them. But the Harvest Thanks- 
giving, the Annual Fast, and the Holy 
Communion at stated intervals, they 
held to be strictly scriptural, and so 
they observed these occasions with 
great interest and sympathy. The 
Harvest Thanksgiving was held in the 
latter part of August, and no doubt was 
based on the Feast of Tabernacles in 
the Jewish Church. The services in 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

the church were full of joyousness, 
while the afternoon was given to 
elaborate dinners and visits among 
neighbors. It was a holy day inas- 
much as it was warranted by scripture, 
but it was not a solemn holy day, since 
while it brought entire surcease from 
daily toil, it was a day of gladness, 
thanksgiving and merry-making. 

This shows that our fathers were by 
no means the sour, morose and gloomy 
people they are so often said to have 
been. They observed such an annual 
thanksgiving for the blessings of the 
5^ear long before anything of the kind 
was proposed by either state or national 
authority. It was their Feast of Tab- 
ernacles. 

The Annual Fast-Day was no make- 
believe ordinance. It was the real 
thing. The divine ordinance of fast- 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ing has been pretty much dropped out 
of our modern church life. If, how- 
ever, we follow the biblical teachings 
and example, and no less that of his- 
toric Christianity, there is no doubt 
that fasting is just as authentically and 
as peremptorily a divine ordinance as 
is prayer or praise, or any other means 
of grace. The teaching and example 
of our Lord and His Apostles, are per- 
fectly clear on this point. No doubt 
it was practised by the early Church, 
and always in its more consecrated 
days. Somehow this easy-going age 
has let go of it almost entirely except 
as it is kept up in a qualified form, and 
at stated seasons, by papal and pre- 
latical communions. The majority of 
Christians give no attention to it ex- 
cept when brought into some sore dis- 
tress, or when some dire calamity 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

falls upon them. During our great 
Revolutionary struggle, more than 
once or twice, the whole country at 
call of the authorities, fell on its knees 
before God. Many times during our 
great Civil War, when the whole Na- 
tion was wallowing in a sea of tears 
and blood, our great martyred Presi- 
dent summoned the whole people to 
their knees in a day of fasting and 
prayer. Perhaps we shall not think of 
it again until some calamity befalls us. 
But our fathers believed it to be a 
divinely appointed ordinance to be 
statedly and religiously observed. 
That day had all the quiet and solem- 
nity of the Sabbath, plus an added 
sombreness and abstinence from food. 
As a rule, there was not entire ab- 
stinence, but a very pinching dimin- 
ution of the usual ample supply. 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Some, however, scarcely tasted food 
during the entire day. One of the sons 
of the Rev. David French writes me 
that his father would ride on horseback 
twelve miles to reach his appointments, 
hold two long services, preaching two 
long sermons, without tasting food of 
any kind till he was ready to retire for 
the night, when he would nibble a 
cracker and drink a glass of milk. I 
can myself remember how it was in my 
grandfather's time. We always had a 
scant breakfast early in the morning, 
and then went to the very long and 
awfully solemn service in the church. 
Everybody wore a long face, and 
looked as if there had been a funeral 
in the house yesterday. I can recall 
sitting through that long and trying 
service with hand in pocket fumbling 
with a big red apple, which somehow I 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

had smuggled in, and fairly aching to 
get it out and bury my jaws in it. But 
there was no chance for that kind of 
thing. 

The Lord's Supper was celebrated 
in Seceder churches but twice a year, 
while in ours, it was observed three 
times a year, — February, June and Oc- 
tober. This ordinance was always 
called "The Sacrament," not because 
baptism was undervalued, as it was not, 
but simply in the way of emphasis. 
These sacramental sessions were always 
great occasions, especially the June 
and October communions, when the 
weather was likely to be fine. There 
was always a neighboring minister to 
assist, and often more than one, and quite 
often near-by congregations would 
omit their services for the day and at- 
tend in full force. The services really 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

began the Sabbath preceding, and were 
specially ordered to lead up to the com- 
munion. The services immediately 
connected with the communion, how- 
ever, began on the Thursday preced- 
ing, which was alwa^^s announced as a 
"day of fasting, humiliation and 
prayer." Some minister other than the 
pastor usually preached on that day, 
and the sermon with the accompanying 
services were exceedingly solemn and 
searching. The sins and shortcomings 
of the people were dwelt upon with 
great plainness, faithfulness, and often 
with unsparing severity. This plan of 
bringing in an outside minister for the 
occasion was a rather skillful one, as 
he could castigate the people as prob- 
ably their own pastor could not with- 
out giving offence. It v/as a time for 
the use of the rod of God, for putting 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

on of sackcloth and ashes, for humble 
confession and deep penitence. Then 
came the meeting of the Session for the 
examination of candidates for admis- 
sion to the church. This examination 
was no perfunctory and quickly-done 
ordeal. It was thorough and search- 
ing, and not merely experimental, but 
theological as well. It was a good 
time for one to know his catechism. It 
was like being examined for admission 
to West Point, and when one had 
passed successfully he felt sure that he 
had really joined something. Usually 
there was a service on the Friday sim- 
ilar to that of the Thursday, but there 
was always such a service on the Satur- 
day, when the minister who was to as- 
sist appeared. The people were not 
apprised beforehand whom they were 
to expect, and as some neighboring 

156 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ministers were popular favorites and 
some were not, there was no little curi- 
osity as to whom they were to expect. 
This Sunday service was strictly 
pfefrparatory to the communion, and the 
attention of the people was strongly 
fixed on the great truths which cluster 
round the cross of Christ. It was ex- 
pected that all the services, and espec- 
ially the sermon would be peculiarly 
tender, and fitted to move the deepest 
spiritual feelings of the people. At 
the close of this service, the elders stood 
in a row in front of the pulpit to hand 
out " tokens " to intending communi- 
cants, who were expected to come for- 
ward and receive them from the elder's 
hand. The origin of this custom I do 
not certainly know. Dr. W. H. 
French, of the U. P. Church, thinks it 
had its origin in the close communion 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

rules of the Seceder bodies. His opin- 
ion is entitled to great respect, but my 
own judgment, after some study of the 
question, is that the custom originated 
in times of persecution when only those 
certainly known to be trustworthy 
could be informed of the time and 
place of such a service. Informers 
and spies were abroad, and only such 
as were known to elders to be faithful 
were advised of the time and place of 
these gatherings which must be in 
secret places. When the dragoons of 
Alva in Holland, and the Rough- 
Riders of Claverhouse in Scotland 
were scouring the country in search of 
worshipping Presbyterians and Protes- 
tants, to imprison and slay them, it was 
necessary to have some sort of secret 
symbol or pass-word to be given to 
faithful men and women by those who 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

knew them, and the token was such 
symbol. The custom, like many other 
such customs, continued long after the 
need of it had passed. These tokens 
were bits of pewter about the size of a 
nickle, and stamped with the initials of 
the congregation. 

On common Sabbath the people as- 
sembled early and in large numbers, 
and the grove round the church was 
filled with vehicles and horses tied to 
the trees. Sometimes the crowds were 
so great that the service had to be held 
in the open air, but usually they were 
held in the large church. Tables were 
placed across the entire width of the 
building, and often dovv^n the wide 
centre aisle. These tables were simply 
made of poplar boards, unpainted, 
about the height of the ordinary din- 
ing table, and fifteen inches wide. 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AM ERICA 

They were covered with spotless linen. 
Along each side were placed lower 
benches for the people to sit upon. In 
front of the pulpit stood a small table 
on which were placed the holy vessels 
with their contents of unleavened bread 
and port wine. The wine was always 
port, the purest that could be found, 
and the bread utterly unleavened, in 
thin layers, devoutly made for the pur- 
pose. What was left of it after the 
service was devoutly eaten by the 
elders, or other pious people. The 
morning sermon was called the "ac- 
tion sermon," and was always an earn- 
est and elaborate setting-forth of the 
vicarious sacrifice of Christ, and 
usually took a full hour. This, with 
the accompanying services, required at 
least two full hours before the celebra- 
tion proper began. Then, after a 
1 60 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

hymn, and the reading from scripture 
of the warrant for the service, came 
what was called the "fencing of the 
tables." This was a lengthfy address 
stating with great minuteness, the tests 
by which people must decide whether 
they were entitled to come to the 
Lord's Table, and barring those who 
were not entitled to come. This was 
the opportunity for the visiting min- 
ister to bear down on the sins, or sup- 
posed sins of the people. He would 
descend to particulars, specifying sins 
or alleged sins, and declaring that those 
who were living in them, coming to 
the Lord's Table, could only eat and 
drink damnation to themselves. By 
the time he was done it would seem 
that there could hardly be one in the 
place who would dare approach the 
holy table. He had set an angel with 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

a drawn sword to guard the holy place. 
But he was careful always to assure 
those who sincerely repented of their 
sins that they were welcome. After 
this a hymn or psalm was sung. If a 
hymn, it was usually that tender, melt- 
ing, utterly unpoetic one beginning, — 
'"Twas on that dark and doleful 
night," sung to that quaint old, wail- 
ing tune in the minor key, Wind- 
ham. If a psalm, it was the one in 
the version of Rouse beginning, — I'll 
of salvation take the cup," sung to 
that still more wierd old tune. Coles- 
hill. Poets laugh at these lyrics, and 
musicians at these tunes, but there 
are thousands of men and women 
all over the world in whose memories 
these old hymns and psalms mated to 
these old tunes have a singular pathos 
and power. These ancient lyrics, sing- 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ing which thousands of Christian mar- 
tyrs have marched to the stake, and 
thousands of heroes have laid down 
their lives for Christ and the rights of 
man, cannot be laughed out of the 
sacred appreciation of high-minded 
men and women by any mockery of 
connoiseurs. They will live and be 
loved long after the mockers are dead 
and utterly forgotten. 

During the singing, people rose all 
over the house filing down the aisles, 
and taking their places at the tables, 
till all were filled. All others re- 
mained quietly in their pews. A 
prayer of consecration followed, after 
which the minister made an address, 
during which the elders passed along 
behind the benches collecting the 
tokens from the communicants, who 
sat with bowed heads over the tables. 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

The bread was then distributed, fol- 
lowed by another address, after which 
the cup was passed. Then came a 
hymn during the singing of which 
those at the tables retired, and others 
coming forward took their places, when 
the same order was observed. Often 
this order had to be passed through 
several times before all communicants 
were served. The closing address was 
always an earnest, and often a very 
povv^erful appeal to non-communicants. 
This service would take up a large part 
of the holy day, and towards evening, 
the people would quietly and silently 
scatter to their homes. With all its 
simplicity and quaintness there was 
something exceedingly impressive and 
affecting in this method of celebrating 
the Holy Supper. Very impressive 
was the spectacle of people rising from 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

their seats all over the church and go- 
ing forward to the sacred table, many 
of them weeping, while others, mem- 
bers of their families, were left behind 
as deniers of the Lord. Especially, 
when some great preacher in eloquent 
words and with tearful emphasis, pic- 
tured the coming judgment and its 
eternal separations, and asked if this 
now seen here was a prophecy of what 
would be seen there, the effect was 
often very great. I can distinctly re- 
call how profoundly moved I was as a 
boy, with mingled shame and terror, 
as my parents and others of my family 
went to the holy table with the people 
of God, leaving me behind. I felt 
that I was a sort of culprit and outcast, 
an enemy of Christ and under the 
curse of God, and that surely I was in 
imminent danger of being on the left 

165 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

hand in the dreadful day of judgment. 
I know that a great many other hoys, 
companions of my childhood, some of 
them in the high places of the earth, 
felt just as I did, and to this day, so far 
as they are alive, carry sacred and ten- 
der memories of these old-time com- 
munion Sabbaths. In our present 
hasty, and sometimes irreverent, meth- 
od of celebrating the Lord's Supper, 
we have lost much of its solemnity not 
only, but much of its tenderness and 
power. In the evening another service 
was held, with an earnest sermon ad- 
dressed specially to those who had that 
day denied their Lord. 

The Monday forenoon closed the 
services of the great commemoration. 
The services of that day, the hymns, 
prayers, sermon, and all else, were al- 
ways bright, hopeful and joyous. It 
i66 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

was the last, the great day of the feast, 
and always a day of thanksgiving, 
praise and gladness. The entire mood 
and aspect of the people were changed. 
There was a warmth, a glow, almost a 
levity, in the very faces of the people 
in striking contrast with the sombre- 
ness and solemnity of the preceding 
days. It was the day for the presenta- 
tion of infants for baptism, and as 
great importance was attached to this 
ordinance, the number brought for- 
ward was often quite large. The peo- 
ple were taught that, by the provisions 
of the covenant, the children of be- 
lievers had a birthright, a veritable 
citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, 
and that baptism was the public and 
official recognition and seal of that 
birthright. Our fathers, our standards 
and our scriptures give far greater im- 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

portance to the seals of the covenant 
and to the validity of the sacraments 
than do most of our people, and even 
our ministers, in these days. We too 
often think of them as merely more or 
less beautiful, touching and suitable 
ceremonies. Our fathers believed, as 
the scriptures teach, that they are most 
solemn seals of the covenant of grace, 
and that they certify a most vital and 
valid transaction between God and His 
people. Hence they brought their 
young children to the altar that their 
birthright might be openly claimed, 
recognized and certified. Sometimes 
there would be probably a dozen pairs 
of parents standing in a row before the 
pulpit, each pair with a babe in arms. 
Sometimes, a little motherless babe, 
made motherless at its birth, would be 
brought forward by the father to be 
i68 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

given to the Lord in this holy ordi- 
nance, and this spectacle always deep- 
ly moved the people. The pastor 
made quite a lengthy address, during 
which the mothers were seated on 
chairs considerately placed for the pur- 
pose, while the fathers meekly stood. 
If a baby was fretful, some motherly 
woman near-by would whisk out of her 
seat, bustle forward, take the little 
thing out under the trees, there sooth- 
ing it, until called for, v/hich would 
probably be in half an hour. 

After the service ended, the people 
lingered about for some time in pleas- 
ant greetings and harmless gossip, and 
at last separated. So ended the great 
occasion. Those who were used to 
such sacramental seasons in their child- 
hood and youth, no matter how far 
they may have wandered from the old 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

place and the old faith ; no matter how 
aged or how eminent they may have 
become, never lose the sacred memory 
of them, nor can they ever escape their 
sweet and holy influences. Thomas 
Carlyle never wrote anything more pa- 
thetic, nor anything which more clear- 
ly revealed what was deepest in his 
nature, than his reminiscences of what 
he calls "the plain old temple of his 
childhood, with its old-fashioned min- 
ister, the truest priest I have ever 
found, its rustic people and its simple 
and solemn services." He had wan- 
dered far from the faith of his fathers 
and had become one of the most fa- 
mous men of his time, but in his old 
age and great celebrity, he recalls with 
tearful emotion, the memories that 
clustered round that sacred spot, and 
he confesses that their influence had 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

rested like a holy benediction on all 
the years of his life. He was offered 
sepulchre In Westminster Abbey, 
among the tombs of England's mighty 
dead, but he expressly declared his 
wish that his body should be laid close 
by the walls of the plain old sanctuary 
of his childhood and of his fathers, and 
that his dust should mingle with the 
ashes of his rustic people in the church- 
yard of Ecclefechan. 



171 



CHAPTER X. 

These Scotch-Irish were strictly and 
stubbornly conservative in all matters 
of religion, as they were, in fact, in re- 
gard to all things. They gave heed to 
the apostolic counsel to contend earn- 
estly for the faith once for all delivered 
to the saints. They had no welcome 
for new doctrines in theology, new 
forms of worship, or new institutions 
and agencies in the Church. They be- 
lieved that the Lord knew what He was 
doing when he appointed the ordi- 
nances and agencies of the Church, and 
that there was no call for amending 
them by human additions. They spoke 
much of the pattern prescribed in the 
Mount, and every new proposal they 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

instantly met with the peremptory- 
challenge, — "Where is your warrant in 
holy scripture? Show us that if you 
can; if you cannot, then begone." 
Hence, in the earliest days, not only 
woman's societies, young people's soci- 
eties, and the like, but even sabbath- 
schools and stated prayer-meetings, 
were unknown. It was not because the 
people had not thought of these things ; 
it was because they did not believe in 
them. They found no warrant in holy 
scripture for such special agencies. 
They asked, "Where has the Lord au- 
thorized these as among the stated 
means of grace?" In our time we at- 
tach great importance to these and the 
like agencies, and very properly, but it 
is worthy of remark that for nine-tenths 
of its history Christianity has made no 
use of these agencies, and that the 

173 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

greatest revivals in the history of the 
Christian Church, and the epochs of 
its greatest power were in times when 
the greater part of the machinery of 
the modern Church was unknown. 

Our fathers laid most urgent and in- 
sistent emphasis on the religious train- 
ing of the household, on the strict and 
searching care of the pastor, and on the 
prescribed ordinances of the Church. 
These they regarded as divinely war- 
ranted and all-sufficient, and all fur- 
ther ordinances as merely human inno- 
vations, worldly amendments, and cun- 
ningly contrived schemes to improve 
on God's plan. Undoubtedly this was 
good for the time, but whether it is 
best for our time, is another question. 
Many of our wisest pastors and people 
are now inquiring whether this pro- 
digious multiplication of all sorts of 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

agencies and societies in the Church is, 
upon the whole, a blessing and a help 
in the advancement of the kingdom of 
God? Whether it may not be true that 
too much of the interest, enthusiasm, 
activity and money of the Church is ex- 
pended in the mere running of ma- 
.chinery? Whether all these agencies 
are provided for in the constitution of 
the Church as prepared by her Divine 
Head, as they certainly are not pro- 
vided for in any of the standards or 
liturgies of any of the great Reformed 
Communions? Whether the modern 
Church is wiser than the fathers, and 
wiser than the scriptures, and whether 
all these multiform agencies are not the 
product of the Zeitgeist, the spirit of 
this world invading the kingdom of 
God? This is not a foolish inquiry. 
This modern mill doubtless turns out 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

a larger grist; it may be a question 
v/hether the grist is of equal quality 
and value. No doubt our fathers 
erred in one direction: perhaps we err 
in the other. Sabbath-schools were 
very grudgingly introduced in south- 
western Pennsylvania, and elsewhere 
among the genuine Scotch-Irish peo- 
ple. 

They were looked upon at first as 
simply a device for turning over to the 
Church the responsibility which God 
had placed on the home, and on the 
head of it as the priest of his house- 
hold. They thought it was a scheme 
to realize in the Church Plato's theory, 
that all children should be considered 
children of the state, and that no 
mother should know her own child as 
specially her own, and for whose train- 
ing she was specially responsible. Per- 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

haps these Sabbath-schools among the 
Scotch-Irish were introduced in south- 
western Pennsylvania as early as any- 
where, and in Upper Buffalo as early 
as anywhere in that region. So far as 
can be ascertained, the first Sabbath- 
school in that congregation was set up 
in 1815. By degrees, these Sabbath- 
schools grew in favor, and now for a 
great many years, no part of the coun- 
try has exceeded that part in zeal for 
Sabbath-schools. As soon as these 
were fairly introduced, the old-fash- 
ioned "catechisings" began to dwindle. 
These "catechisings" were a rather 
peculiar institution, but one in great 
vogue for many years. The extended 
rural congregation was divided into 
definite districts. In addition to dili- 
gent pastoral visitation from house to 
house throughout the entire congrega- 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

tion, which visitation did not mean a 
modern fashionable call, but a calling 
together of the whole family, when the 
pastor talked face to face with every 
member of the family, including hired 
people, accompanied with solemn 
prayer and exhortation, — ^in addition 
to this, in each district there was held 
at stated intervals, as often as once a 
year, "catechisings," when the people 
of the district assembled in some des- 
ignated house, where the pastor held 
a religious service, included in which 
was a thorough examination of all 
present in the Shorter Catechism. 
Now, the Sabbath-school gradually 
superseded this wholesome custom, and 
the catechising, and much else, was 
turned over to the Sabbath-school. 
The gain on the one hand, and the loss 
on the other, presents a question on 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

which wise and good people may 
differ. 

From a very early date, probably 
from the beginning of the settlements, 
neighbors were accustomed to meet to- 
gether for prayer at stated times. 
These meetings were purely voluntary, 
and were not thought of as ordinances 
of the Church. Such meetings were 
held in Buffalo certainly as early as 
1794, as I have heard my grandfather 
say that when his father moved into 
that community in that year, he at- 
tended a meeting of neighbors for 
prayer, and that it was there that his 
prejudice against Watts hymns was re- 
moved. These hymns were used, and 
he said, "If this is not worship ac- 
ceptable to God, I do not know what 
is." These neighborhood meetings 
were continued once a week, or once 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

in two weeks for many years before 
stated prayer-meetings became an in- 
stitution of the Church. Doctor Fran- 
cis Herron, so long pastor of the First 
Church of Pittsburgh, had a great bat- 
tle with his elders when he proposed 
to set up a weekly prayer-meeting. 
These elders resisted the proposal as 
an innovation and an impertinence, 
and refused to have anything to do 
with them. For a long time these 
weekly meetings were regarded as so- 
cial gatherings for prayer and confer- 
ence, and in no sense as an integral part 
of the authorized services of the 
Church. Hence they were always 
called "societies." The voice of no 
woman was ever heard in either re- 
mark or prayer in any such meeting. 
Any attempt of any woman, however 
pious, to speak or pray would have 
1 80 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

been instantly and sternly suppressed. 
Very rarely did any layman open his 
mouth to speak or exhort except in the 
Sabbath-school. Our fathers were, in 
fact, very high churchmen, and had 
very strict ideas concerning ordinances 
and the authorized ministry of the 
Church. Everything must be strictly 
canonical, and according to the pre- 
scribed order. The supervision of the 
people by the pastor and session wsls 
vigilant, and discipline was strictly en- 
forced. Compared with our modern 
laxity, the old-time discipline seems 
often to have been needlessly severe, 
harsh, and sometimes even cruel. Peo- 
ple were hauled up and "sessioned" for 
ofifences which now are not even seri- 
ously thought of. I have myself heard 
the names of ladies of the first standing 
in the congregation, read out from the 
i8i 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

pulpit, and the bearers of them sus- 
pended from the communion of the 
Church, until they gave satisfactory 
evidence of repentance, for the sin of 
"promiscuous dancing;" such dancing 
being in its most rudimentary form, 
some sort of awkward jig in a private 
parlor with a few neighbors. 

And this was no idle form. It meant 
not only religious, but a sort of social 
ostracism. A playing card was re- 
garded with horror, and the use, or 
even the possession of such a thing, was 
a serious ofifence. I have known my 
own father, one of the gentlest of men, 
seize a pack of cards found in the hands 
of a hired man, and forthwith fling it 
into the flames. And yet, in those early 
days there were some remarkable twists 
in their ethical ideas. The use of 
liquor was almost universal, and they 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

seem to have been utterly blind to the 
evil of lotteries. The people of the old 
First Church of Pittsburgh, while they 
resisted the setting up of a weekly 
prayer-meeting, organized and carried 
through a lottery to raise revenue for 
their church. 

Divorce was practically unknown. 
If husband and wife had a quarrel, 
however bitter, it never occurred to 
them to seek relief in the divorce court. 
They fought it out and made up again, 
and went on as before. But such quar- 
rels were extremely rare, and family 
loyalty was a marked characteristic of 
the race. All the same, the women 
had hard lives. And this, not from 
any intentional neglect or unkindness 
of their husbands, but simply from the 
hard conditions under which their lives 
were passed. They had not only the 

183 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ordinary duties of the housewife, in- 
cluding the care of their children, but 
they had to prepare the fabrics and 
make the clothing, the bedding, the 
table-linen and all like supplies for 
their households. They took care of 
the gardens, milked the cows, tended 
the poultry, dried the fruits for winter 
use, made all the jams, pickles, pre- 
serves, butters and the like for the en- 
tire family. Then they had no mod- 
ern conveniences in their houses, their 
utensils and all facilities for doing 
their work being of the crudest and 
clumsiest description. There were no 
cook-stoves, laundries, running water 
in the house, or other such conven- 
iences. Everything was awkward, 
heavy and hard. Then they had the 
care of the sick in their own homes and 
among their neighbors, there being no 
184 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

nurses and very few physicians. Their 
toil and drudgery were early and late, 
heavy and unremitting, and in addition 
to all this they were environed by many 
and great dangers. Yet, they accepted 
their lot with unshaken fortitude and 
uncomplaining patience, and did their 
hard duties with a brave, cheerful, and 
utterly self-sacrificing spirit. Bless- 
ings on the memory of our mothers, 
grandmothers and great-grandmothers! 
They were genuine heroines if such 
ever lived on the earth. 

These earnest and sober-minded 
Scotch-Irish were not without their 
amusements. While to them life was 
not play, yet there was no little play in 
their lives, else they never could have 
been the brave, enduring and worthy 
lives they were. For the most part of 
course, their amusements were ex- 
i8s 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

tremely simple and inexpensive. It 
must be confessed that sometimes they 
were not too refined, in fact, rather 
coarse and rough, but generally they 
were hearty, honest and wholesome. 
The interchange of visits among neigh- 
bors and relatives in the intervals of 
hard work was very common. The 
people in general were extremely hos- 
pitable. Relatives and friends were 
welcome to come and spend the day 
and night too, at any time without 
warning. Any decent person on a 
journey was welcome to draw bridle 
at the door of any ample house, and 
have provision for himself and his 
horse over night, without money and 
without price. In the long winter 
evenings, one family would go over to 
a neighboring one and ''sit up till bed- 
time;" bed-time being rather an early 
i86 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

hour. But there was plenty of time 
for ginger-bread, doughnuts, hickory 
nuts, sweet cider, and the like simple 
refreshments. Then often a family 
would specially invite a lot of their 
neighbors to "make a visit." This 
meant spending the entire day, and 
sometimes the night, during which 
there would be much feasting. It was 
very common for people "to neighbor" 
as they called it; that is, if a barn was 
to be raised, or a job of threshing to be 
done, or anything requiring a number 
of men, all the men in the neighbor- 
hood would be invited to attend and 
help. Along with these gatherings of 
men there would often be a similar 
gathering of the women in the after- 
noon, for a quilting or some such work, 
and then after a big supper, the even- 
ing would be spent in rustic jollity. 

187 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

There were corn-huskings also, not 
very popular among the better class, 
as they were apt to be rough and to 
take on some of the features of 
rowdyism. Singing-schools, spelling- 
schools, debating societies, and the like 
were very common in the winter 
months, and at such assemblies the 
whole neighborhood would gather and 
greatly enjoy themselves. Their cus- 
toms in respect of weddings were ex- 
tremely simple and practical. When 
a young farmer reached the point 
when he contemplated marriage he 
paid his addresses to the daughter of 
some neighboring farmer. In the 
early days the people had but limited 
contact with the world at large, and 
had almost no acquaintance beyond 
the immediate neighborhood. Hence 
the young fellows seldom went far 
i88 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

from home for their wives. When 
things had progressed far enough to 
warrant the fixing of the marriage 
day, everything was made ready with 
great deliberation and thoroughness. 
The bride-to-be, or her mother rather, 
had been getting ready for that day 
ever since she was born. The feath- 
ers, linens, woolens, and other fur- 
nishings for her house, as also for 
her person, had been steadily accu- 
mulating through all the years of her 
girlhood. As the time drew near, the 
father had ready a fine horse and a fine 
cow, as an indispensable part of her 
dowry. On two successive Sabbaths 
preceding the wedding, after the ben- 
ediction was pronounced in the church 
one of the clerks would "publish the 
bans between John Doe and Jane Roe." 
The marriage was celebrated at the 
189 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

home of the bride, and always during 
the day, and never at night. The 
special friends of that family, together 
with the family of the groom were sure 
to be there. There was much feasting 
and merry-making, and there the par- 
ties passed the night. The next day, 
usually on horseback, the bridal party 
proceeded to the home of the groom's 
family, for the "infare." There were 
gathered the relatives and friends of 
the groom, together with the family 
of the bride. Flere the day was spent 
in more feasting and merry-making. 
This closed the wedding festivities. 
But the next Sabbath, "they made their 
appearance." This custom was in- 
variable in the early days, and con- 
tinued long after my childhood. The 
bride and groom, together with their 
special attendants, arrayed in all their 
190 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

wedding finery, came together to the 
church, waited till the services were 
just about to begin when everybody 
was supposed to be in place, when they 
would enter arm in arm, and march 
down the main aisle, to their place in 
the pew. No matter in which aisle 
their pew might be, that day they must 
sweep down the main aisle. Until this 
"appearance" was duly made, the wed- 
ding ceremonies were not regarded as 
complete. After that, they settled 
down to the serious business of life. 
Of theatrical, operatic, and other such 
pretentious and expensive exhibitions, 
there were absolutely none. If a 
young fellow wished to take his sweet- 
heart to an entertainment, he did not 
need to pay a month's salary for car- 
riage, tickets, gloves and flowers, to 
say nothing of fashionable clothes. 
191 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

He simply called for her at her home, 
and walked across the fields to the 
school-house, if it was not too far, 
and if it was too far to walk, he 
would take her up behind him on 
horseback and ride away, the girl 
clinging tightly, particularly if the 
horse was a little frisky, as in that case 
he was very apt to be. The young 
fellow commonly had sense enough to 
have a spur or other irritant secreted 
about his person. 

A quiet philosopher looking at these 
simple and inexpensive amusements 
might vv'^ell ask, if they were not quite 
as rational, as wholesome, and as sat- 
isfying as whist parties, wine parties, 
and the showy functions of modern 
life? There was here much less of 
style and dress, of pomp and parade, 
of show and splendor; and there was 
192 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

also less of hollow pretence and bitter 
envy, of luxurious vice and destroying 
dissipation; of disgust, despair and 
suicide. 

They were very forward in helping 
one another in case of need. If there 
was sickness or death in a family, 
everybody in the community would 
offer his or her service, and do it 
heartily. If by reason of illness or 
other misfortune, one got behind with 
his seeding or harvesting, the neigh- 
bors would gather in force with their 
teams and hired men and help him 
through. Particularly, if a widow 
needed help on her farm it was sure to 
be promptly forthcoming. Men would 
leave their own fields to gather her 
harvest. In the early days physicians 
were very rare, and dentists unknown. 
When one fell ill, the mother of the 

193 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

house, or some other woman of the 
neighborhood usually did the doctor- 
ing. When certain interesting and 
important occasions came in the fam- 
ily, there were sure to be two or three 
motherly women in the community 
who could do the office of midwife and 
nurse both in one. Meanwhile, the 
man in the case would take to the tall 
timber. Bleeding, ipecac, calomel and 
above all, boneset, were relied upon 
chiefly. In every community there 
was some elderly man who kept a 
thumb-lance, which he used alike to 
bleed men and horses, and which he 
was accustomed to jab into the arm of 
any sick one whom he could make hold 
still long enough. My grandfather 
was such a man. He firmly believed 
that each spring, everybody about the 
place should let blood, take a stiff dose 
194 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

of castor oil, and follow it up for a 
week or so with copious draughts of a 
strong tea made of boneset. This 
"cleaned out" the system of the winter 
gorge, and put things in good shape for 
the summer. There may have been 
something in this, for certainly he 
never laid down on his bed with illness 
during the nearly eighty years of his 
life. At the same time, when any 
really dangerous disease got into the 
settlement, nearly everybody who took 
it died. When one got a severe tooth- 
ache, there was but one remedy, and 
that was to have the tooth jerked out. 
There were no dentists to do this, 
but other men here and there had 
the necessary tool and nerve to do it. 
Here again my grandfather was use- 
ful. Commonly the same man who 
had the "thumb-lance" had the "pul- 

195 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

likens" as they called it. This cruel 
instrument was a short rod of steel with 
savage claws annexed, and when once 
this terrific apparatus got well clinched 
on a tooth, and in the hands of a mus- 
cular and determined man, something 
had to give way. The instrument 
never broke, and the man seldom let go 
his hold. No matter about the shrieks 
and yells of the tortured victim, and 
his writhings round the room, out must 
come the tooth. These neighborly 
services, of course, were always entire- 
ly gratuitous. 

With all their Calvinism there was 
a vein of superstition in our forbears. 
Two classes of men are specially prone 
to superstition, — the one is the ignorant 
and debased, and the other is the high- 
ly gifted and sober-minded. The one 
class cowers and grovels in stupid dread 
196 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

of the mysterious unknown by which 
they feel themselves surrounded and 
oppressed: while the other class is 
overborne by the mystery of existence 
and the immanence and awfulness of 
the unseen world. Those who live on 
the dead levels, and have a humdrum 
existence, are the freest from the in- 
fluence of the invisible and the myster- 
ious. At opposite poles, the devil- 
worshipper of South Africa and Doc- 
tor Samuel Johnson, the poor unlet- 
tered slave and Abraham Lincoln, 
were more or less under the influence 
of what we call superstition. Hence, 
in our strong, forceful, serious, pious 
forefathers, whose minds dwelt much 
on the spiritual and the unseen, there 
was the intermixture of certain super- 
stitious notions and ideas. They al- 
ways denied it in words, but their im- 
197 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

agination was always more or less over- 
shadowed by these occult influences. 
They said, we do not believe in ghosts, 
or apparitions, or omens or signs, and 
yet they did. Certain signs boded 
evil, and certain others boded good. 
They considered the phases of the 
moon when they planted their corn and 
potatoes, and even when they killed 
their pigs. Many of them would not 
sit down to a table with thirteen, nor 
would they begin any important under- 
taking on a Friday. Their ministers 
denounced these conceits, and debarred 
from the communion all who cherished 
them, and yet their fireside tales, their 
common talk, many of their customs 
and usages clearly showed that their 
imagination was filled with spectres 
and invisible agencies swarming in the 
world around them. This, however, 
198 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

was really a vague impression rather 
than a matter of definite belief. It 
never in the least weakened or intimi- 
dated them, nor touched their stalwart 
faith in the absolute and sovereign au- 
thority of the holy oracles. It was a 
feeling rather than a conviction. It 
would be easy to give many amusing 
illustrations of the practical working 
of this sentiment in the former days. 



199 



CHAPTER XL 

The farm work was of the hardest 
kind and done in the hardest way. 
Two generations of men wore them- 
selves out in getting the land cleared of 
the giant forests, and for many years, 
their fields were full of stumps and 
roots, making cultivation extremely 
troublesome. Their implements were 
of the rudest and clumsiest kind. 
Their grain was reaped with sickles 
and threshed with flails. Their axes, 
hoes, shovels, plows, and other imple- 
ments, were made by themselves, or by 
the blacksmith, and were of the most 
awkward pattern and roughest work- 
manship. Every vehicle was clumsy 
and heavy, home-made or neighbor- 

200 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

hood made. All this added to the toil 
and drudgery of their lives. At the 
same time, these people had high am- 
bitions for their children, and great in- 
terest in building up the kingdom of 
God, and their country. They at- 
tached very great importance to educa- 
tion, and did their best to provide it 
for their posterity. There were no 
public schools, and each neighborhood 
had to make provision for itself. 
Hence subscription schools were set up 
and supported by those v/ho had chil- 
dren to send. The school-houses were 
of unhewn logs, with puncheon floors 
and seats, and no desks. One such 
stood on the farm of my ancestors 
where their young people received 
such book training as they ever had. 
The teacher was always called "the 
master," and was usually a college stu- 
20 1 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

dent or graduate. He was apt to be 
one who knew his business as that busi- 
ness was then thought of. Sometimes 
he had a fixed boarding-place, but 
usually he boarded ''round among the 
scholars." As a rule he was a strict 
disciplinarian. He used the rod with 
great freedom and frequency, and ap- 
parently with great gusto. Several 
floggings a day were not uncommon. 
Even in my time as a boy this was so. 
In my own childhood, however, there 
was a small school-house of brick in 
the district. From end to end ran a 
narrow aisle, the door being at one end 
and the master's desk at the other. On 
either side, facing the aisle, were un- 
painted benches running lengthwise of 
the house, in rows, each bench being 
for two scholars, the boys on one side, 
and the girls on the other. The boys 

202 



SCOTCH-IRI SH IN AMERICA 

benches were dreadfully hacked with 
jack-knives, though this had to be done 
very surreptitiously else there was sure 
to be a flogging. The main studies 
were spelling, reading, writing, arith- 
metic, geography, grammar and gen- 
eral history. These were studied with 
great thoroughness. There was little 
chance for scamping the work. The 
master was too sharp and the beech was 
too handy. Besides, the Shorter Cate- 
chism was taught on Saturdays. 
Think of that! Upon request of pa- 
rents children could be excused from 
this study, but such requests were rare. 
The master sat on a raised platform 
at one end of the room, and right be- 
hind him, within easy reach above his 
head, were two hooks on which re- 
posed several beech or hickory rods, 
called ^'wattles," and which were un- 
203 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

commonly tough as a rule. He had 
easy and swift surveillance of the en- 
tire school, and on slightest provoca- 
tion, the handy wattle was quickly 
seized, and the master descended on the 
cringing offender. Somehow I es- 
caped this ordeal except once or twice. 
One I well remember. It was a Sat- 
urday afternoon, and, for some reason, 
I fell into a stubborn fit in my cate- 
chism. I knew it thoroughly from end 
to end, forward and backward, but this 
time I sullenly refused to recite the 
answer to the thirty- first question, that 
about Effectual Calling, and so I got 
the wattle good and hard. I was a 
very small boy then, but from that day 
to this, that particular answer has been 
indelibly impressed on my memory. 
That old teacher is long since dead, but 

204 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

I respect his memory. He did what 
he believed to be his duty. 

In the early settlements the cabin, 
the meeting-house and the school- 
house followed one another in swift 
succession. Very soon also classical 
schools were set up by the ministers. 
These far-sighted ministers wished to 
give the young fellows from the woods 
a chance to learn Latin, Algebra, and 
other such subjects, and especially did 
they plan to prepare young men for 
the ministry. Great and urgent as 
was the need of ministers in the new 
settlements, they would not rush un- 
trained men into the ministry. They 
would have none but classically edu- 
cated men. Before 1790, in what is 
now Washington county, there were 
three such classical schools in oper- 
ation. They were very humble and 
205 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ill-equipped institutions, but they did 
a great work, and out of them grew 
Washington & Jefferson College, one 
of the most useful in this land. As 
the population increased, these schools 
increased in number, and all over that 
general region fifty years ago, these 
parochial academies were found. 
They took boys from the plow, boys 
who would not have thought of going 
two hundred, or one hundred miles to 
learn Latin and get ready for college; 
these schools took up these boys and 
started them on their career. Multi- 
tudes of them have made a useful 
career, and some of them an eminent 
one. These parochial academies have 
been nesting-places of useful men, use- 
ful in every honorable line of life. 

The late James G. Blaine, who got 
his start in one of these, speaks of them 
206 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

with the warmest appreciation and 
praises the great work done by these 
unpretentious schools, and the follow- 
ing is an extract from a letter written 
by him and read at the celebration of 
the centennial of Washington County, 
Pa., September, 1881: 

"The strong attachment which I feel 
for the county, the pride which I cher- 
ish in its traditions, and the high esti- 
mate which I have always placed on 
the character of its people, increases 
with years and reflection. The pion- 
eers were strong-hearted, God-fearing, 
resolute men, wholly, or almost wholly, 
of Scotch or Scotch-Irish descent. 
They were men who, according to an 
inherited maxim, never turned their 
backs on a friend or on an enemy. For 
twenty years, dating from the middle 
period of the Revolution, the settlers 
207 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

were composed very largely of men 
who had themselves served in the Con- 
tinental army, many of them as officers, 
and they imparted an intense patriot- 
ism to the public sentiment. It may 
be among the illusions of memory, but 
I think I have nowhere else seen the 
Fourth of July and Washington's 
birthday celebrated with such zeal and 
interest as in the gatherings I then at- 
tended. I recall a great meeting of 
the people on the Fourth of July, 1840, 
on the border of the county, in Browns- 
ville, at which a considerable part of 
the procession was composed of ve- 
hicles filled with Revolutionary sol- 
diers. I was but ten years old, and 
may possibly mistake, but I think there 
were more than two hundred of the 
grand old heroes. The modern cant 
and criticism which we sometimes hear 
208 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

about Washington not being, after all, 
a great man would have been danger- 
ous both on that day and in that as- 
semblage. 

These pioneers placed a high value 
on education, and while they were still 
on the frontier, struggling with its pri- 
vations, they established two excellent 
colleges, long since prosperously unit- 
ed in one. It would be impossible to 
overstate the beneficent and wide- 
spread influence which Washington 
and Jefferson colleges have exerted on 
the civilization of the great country 
which lies between the AUeghenies 
and the Mississippi River. Their 
graduates have been prominent in the 
pulpit, at the bar, on the bench, and 
in high stations in public life. During 
my service of eighteen years in Con- 
gress I met a larger number of the 
209 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Alumni of Washington and Jefferson 
than of any other single college in the 
Union. I make this statement from 
memory, but I feel assured that a close 
examination of the rolls of the two 
houses from 1863 to 1881 would fully 
establish its correctness. Not only 
were the two colleges founded and 
well sustained, but the entire educa- 
tional system of the county, long be- 
fore the school tax and public schools, 
was comprehensive and thorough. I 
remember that in my own boyhood 
there were ten or eleven academies or 
select schools in the county where the 
lads could be fitted for college. In 
nearly every instance the Presbyterian 
pastor was the principal teacher. 
Many who will be present at your cen- 
tennial will recall the succession of 
well-drilled students who came for so 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

many years from the tuition of Dr. 
McCluskey, at West Alexander; from 
the Rev. John Stockton, at Cross 
Creek; from the Rev. John Eagleson, 
at Buffalo; and from others of like 
worth and reputation. 

I have myself visited many of the 
celebrated spots in Europe and Amer- 
ica, and I have nowhere witnessed a 
more attractive sight than was familiar 
to my eyes in boyhood from old Indian 
Hill farm where I was born, and 
where my great-grandfather settled 
before the outbreak of the Revolution. 
Identified as I have been for twenty- 
eight years, with a great and noble 
people in another section of the Union, 
I have never lost my attachment for 
my native county and my native State. 
The two feelings no more conflict than 
does a man's love for his wife and his 

211 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

love for his mother. Whatever I may 
be in life, or whatever my future, the 
county of Washington, as it anciently 
was, will be sacred in my memory. I 
shall always recall with pride that my 
ancestry and kindred were and are not 
inconspicuously connected with its his- 
tory, and that on either side of the 
beautiful river, in Protestant and Cath- 
olic cemeteries, five generations of my 
own blood sleep in honored graves." 
These sturdy sons of the farm and 
of a sturdy race needed only the op- 
portunity to forge ahead. They are 
found everywhere, and wherever found 
are likely to be at the front. For in- 
stance, away out on this edge of the 
land, I found not long ago that the 
most influential banker on this coast, 
the President of the largest express 
company in the world, and the Major- 

212 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

General U. S. A. commanding this De- 
partment were, every one of them, boys 
from these little parochial schools of 
which I am writing. One of them was 
a native of Washington, another was 
my classmate at Washington, and the 
General was an old Buffalo Academy 
boy, the playmate and schoolmate of 
my boyhood. The most noted senator 
of the United States from this coast in 
many years, and who lately died, was 
also from the same old county, and 
trained in one of these schools. The 
wealthiest man in the whole central 
west, also a senator of the United States, 
is from the same county and from one 
of these schools. I might multiply ex- 
amples. I do not boast of this, how- 
ever, but rather of the great number of 
faithful and useful men in Church and 
State, who had their start in these hum- 
213 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

ble schools, founded by these departed 
pastors. It is a thousand pities that 
these schools have pretty much gone 
out of existence. Washington & Jef- 
ferson College, in its origin and his- 
tory, is a distinctively Scotch-Irish in- 
stitution. Judged by current stand- 
ards, it has always been a poor college, 
but judged by its output, by the influ- 
ence of the men it has sent forth, it has 
been for more than a century, one of 
the most useful institutions of its class 
in this country. It has given more 
men to the Presbyterian ministry dur- 
ing the last fifty years than any other 
college. Its alumni have been found 
in the most conspicuous pulpits from 
New York to San Francisco. All over 
the missionary field at home and 
abroad, its men have been marked men. 
In the chairs of president and profes- 
214 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

sor, in editorial sanctums, wherever 
Presbyterian ministers are found doing 
useful work, there you find the men of 
this college. Not only in the Presby- 
terian Church, but also in other com- 
munions, these men are found in posi- 
tions of great prominence and influ- 
ence. No less are its alumni found in 
other lines of life, holding the foremost 
places at the bar, on the bench, in sur- 
gery and medicine, in literature and 
education, in trade and commerce, in 
statesmanship and public life, — along 
every path where honorable men strive 
for mastery, there you will find at the 
front the graduates of this Scotch-Irish 
college. It is not creditable to the 
posterity of its founders," many of 
whom have amassed great wealth, and 
to its eminent alumni, that this college 
has been left so long to struggle with 
215 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

difficulties arising out of its inadequate 
endowment. It is gratifying to know, 
however, that in recent years some 
wealthy men of that wealthy region 
are beginning to appreciate its noble 
history and are coming forward with 
generous gifts to its endowment. 



216 



CHAPTER XII. 

In this book something should be 
said of the famous Whiskey Insurrec- 
tion of 1794, since it had its focus and 
chief strength in the very heart of the 
section of which I am writing, and 
since these Scotch-Irish were mainly 
the people concerned. That' notable 
uprising was occasioned by the levy- 
ing of the hateful excise tax on whis- 
key. This was done by the United 
States Government, and was part of 
the policy of Hamilton for raising rev- 
enue to enable the Government to pay 
its debts. Because this violent protest 
of the people against an excise tax 
happened to be a protest against such 
a tax on whiskey, the whole movement 
217 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

has an opprobrious name. It was not 
merely because a hateful tax happened 
to be laid on tea, that our forefathers 
rebelled in Boston harbor. It was be- 
cause such a tax should be levied at 
all. The thing taxed had but little 
to do with the intense and indignant 
protest. If in western Pennsylvania 
this tax had been laid on flax, or flour, 
the uproar would have been quite as 
great, probably far greater. Our fa- 
thers no doubt fell into a grievous 
mistake in going into that unfortunate 
enterprise, and in resisting by force a 
decree of the Government they had just 
helped to establish. But something 
can be said in extenuation of their 
fault. The excise is the most hateful 
form of tax that can be imposed on 
a free people, and is never resorted to 
in civilized countries, except in times 
218 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

of war or dire necessity. The excise 
precipitated the American Revolution. 
Our fathers in western Pennsylvania 
at that time were almost completely 
isolated from the markets of the world. 
There were no roads over which they 
could carry the produce of their farms 
beyond the mountains to a market 
where money could be had. The 
story already told of Father Smiley's 
expedition to New Orleans illustrates 
the condition of affairs. Grain, how- 
ever, could be distilled into whiskey, 
and in that condensed form, packed 
over the mountains, or easily shipped 
to New Orleans. At that time, there 
was no moral or religious sentiment 
against the manufacture and use of ar- 
dent spirits, any more than there was 
against any other business or custom. 
The traffic in ardent spirits was 
219 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

thought of as just as legitimate legally 
and morally as the traffic in wheat or 
potatoes. In the old treasurer's book 
of the Buffalo congregation, there are 
entries of the stipend, that is, the sub- 
scription to the minister's salary, being 
paid in whiskey. Hence small still- 
houses were very numerous in the re- 
gion. I am glad to say that there 
never was one on my ancestral acres, 
but the neighbors and fellow-church- 
men of my fathers, quite as good as my 
people, had these still-houses. They 
were no more thought of than if they 
had been flouring-mills. Educated 
people understand this. Fools do not. 
The excise was particularly hateful to 
these Scotch-Irish people, because it 
was to escape this very impost that they 
had gone into the war of the Revolu- 
tion. This section was full of dis- 
220 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

charged officers and soldiers of the 
Army of the Revolution. In that 
great struggle many of them had risked 
their lives. Now, to have the very 
Government they had helped to estab- 
lish at so great cost, impose on them 
this hateful tax they had gone to war 
to throw off, seemed to them intolera- 
ble, and it goaded them to fury. The 
wisest men among them, including 
their ministers, counselled patience, 
and did their best to restrain the people 
from actual resistance. But there 
were a few able, reckless, turbulent and 
violent men among them, who assumed 
leadership, and who were able to kin- 
dle a flame, and soon a conflagration. 
As in the case of our southern brethren 
before our great war, sober-minded 
men held back as long as they could, 
but at length were overborne by the 

221 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

fire-eaters. As usually happens, when 
the real crisis came the reckless agita- 
tors vanished from the scene, and left 
nobler men to suffer the consequences 
of the storm raised by these agitators. 
Then the Government was peculiarly 
unfortunate in the policy it adopted, 
and the agents it employed in levying 
and collecting the tax. The policy was 
harsh, arbitrary and tyrannical ; and 
the agents were unpopular, exasper- 
ating, over-bearing and cruel to the last 
degree. Hence almost the entire pop- 
ulation at last joined in the movement 
to resist by force, what they deeply 
felt to be an invasion of their rights. 
President Washington knew the kind 
of people he had to deal with in this 
matter, as he had often seen and praised 
their valor on many a battlefield, and 
so he sent out against them the largest 

222 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

army that, up to that time, had ever 
been arrayed on one field in this coun- 
try. Of course, the insurrection was 
put down, and a considerable number 
of those supposed to be influential, 
were marched clear across the moun- 
tains in the dead of winter, under much 
hardship and suflering, to be tried in 
Philadelphia. These were not the 
men who had fomented the insurrec- 
tion, but quiet, conservative, important 
men, who had gone into the movement 
with great reluctance, and mainly in 
the hope of restraining their neighbors 
from acts of folly and violence. The 
wise Washington kept them in prison 
for a very brief time, only a few days, 
simply to assert the power of the Gov- 
ernment. The movement ended dis- 
astrously, but it had the effect of put- 
ting a perpetual end to the excise in 
223 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

this country except in times of war. 
Their people never disowned the men 
who suffered, any more than Vir- 
ginians disowned Lee and Jackson. 
Once at a banquet given by the So- 
ciety of the Sons of the American Rev- 
olution in San Francisco, in an address, 
I said, "I am probably the only man 
here who was given in baptism the 
name of one who served a time as a 
convict in the penitentiary, and who 
is not ashamed to confess it. There 
may be others here who bear the name 
of one who had a similar experience, 
but probably they are not openly con- 
fessing and claiming it. I bear the 
name of such a man, and am not 
ashamed of it; a wise, brave, saintly, 
and patriotic man, an officer in the 
Army of the Revolution, and the 
friend of Washington, but whom the 
224 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Father of his country clapped into the 
penitentiary in Philadelphia for a few 
days, as an example, and because he 
very reluctantly had something to do 
with the famous whiskey insurrection 
in western Pennsylvania. His family 
never disowned him while he lived, nor 
dishonored his memory after he died." 



225 



CHAPTER XIII 

/ These Scotch-Irish were uncommon- 
/ ly "set in their ways." This is often 
said to their discredit. They are de- 
scribed as a bigoted, stubborn, pig- 
headed breed ; as much given to conten- 
tions and quarrels about trivialities ; as 
extremely quick to take offense, and 
very reluctant to be reconciled, and 
hence it is said, they were a hard peo- 
ple to live with, and that there were 
among them many life-long alienations 
and feuds arising out of matters utter- 
ly unimportant and even contemptible. 
There is a color of truth in this. 
Their blood was very red and their 
temper very hot, their heads were hard 
and their hands heavy, but they were 
226 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

by no means a quarrelsome people. 
They were not of kin to Paddy at the 
Donnybrook fair, strutting about with 
a chip on his shoulder and provoking 
a fracas. They seldom invited trouble 
or picked a quarrel, but once in, they 
could be depended upon to stay in to a 
finish. They were bound to have 
room for themselves, and refused to be 
too much crowded; hence they were 
sturdy fighters, and not likely to run 
away till the trouble was over. This 
was their way when contending for 
their civil and religious liberties in 
other lands ; they showed the same trait 
in the struggle for American Indepen- 
dence, and continued to show it in all 
things. This mood, temper, or trait 
of the race was a very marked 
and persistent one. No doubt there 
was in the typical Scotch-Irish 
227 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

a vein of what may fairly be 
called asinine obstinacy. He some- 
times thought he was governed by 
principle and conscience when in fact 
it was only prejudice and stubbornness. 
Consequently, many of the alienations 
in families, neighborhoods and congre- 
gations were silly, contemptible and 
wicked. But it was this very trait in 
its nobler manifestations, that gave 
them their strength and heroism. The 
very men who were sometimes misled 
into making battle where there was 
nothing worth while at stake were pre- 
cisely the men who were ready to stand, 
and who did stand unto death for the 
rights of man and the truth of Christ. 
The noblest qualities are sometimes the 
most easily perverted, and they are the 
very worst when so perverted. It was 
the conscience and fiery zeal of Saul of 
228 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

Tarsus, perverted, that made him the 
scourge and the terror of the early 
Church. An earnest and determined 
man is always dangerous if he is mis- 
led. This is the snare of all able, con- 
scientious and resolute people. Every 
strong and overcoming man is "set in 
his ways;" else he would not be strong 
and overcoming at all. Only the weak 
and willowy give way when they are 
challenged. The important thing to 
be seen to is, that the position taken is 
right, and that the matter at issue is 
worth contending for. Herein was 
the weakness, and sometimes the wick- 
edness of my people. As a Scotch- 
Irishman by birth and breeding, in 
blood and marrow, I call them mine, 
and claim the right to speak of them 
freely. I have an honest pride in 
my race, but not in all their traits 
229 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and doings. They often made them- 
selves small and contemptible before 
God and all high-minded men, by 
their squabbles over things of no im- 
portance. Most frequently these con- 
tentions were concerning matters of 
doctrine, or worship, or church admin- 
istration, for by far the most important 
interest of life to these people was their 
religion. Just here is the explanation 
of the manifold divisions of the com- 
mon Presbyterians. All branches of 
this common Presbyterianism hold sub- 
stantially to the same doctrines and 
policy, and yet they have been broken 
up into many divisions by differences 
of opinion touching a more or less 
strict construction of some points of 
doctrine, worship, or administration. 
This gave us two or three kinds of 
Covenanters, of Seceders, and of those 
230 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

who called themselves Regulars. 
These separated branches were not 
only alienated, but for most of the 
time, actively belligerent. If the 
Presbyterian Jew did not openly curse 
the Presbyterian Samaritan in his syn- 
agogue, he at least unsparingly de- 
nounced him, and warned his flock 
against his perilous wiles and perni- 
cious delusions. This was in keeping 
with the temperament of the people, 
and we cannot boast of it. 

But many of these lamentable alien- 
ations were found in families, and 
among neighbors and fellow-church- 
members, and often over some paltry 
social matter, or question of property. 
A dispute about a line fence betw^een 
two farms, when only a few inches in 
width of land were in question, would 
sometimes lead to a bitter quarrel 
231 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

which would last for more than one 
generation. Two neighbors of ours, 
people of the first respectability and 
piety, for two or three generations 
could not agree on the precise location 
of the line between their farms, and for 
many a day two fences were kept up, 
not three feet apart, each claiming the 
little strip between. There was no 
open outbreak, but a fixed difference of 
opinion which could not be composed. 
The laying out of a new public road, or 
a small change in an old one, some- 
times resulted in a bitter and lasting 
feud. These were not merely transient 
gusts of passion: they often degenera- 
ted into settled alienations which 
passed down from sire to son. I have 
known a brother and two sisters living 
near together, all members of the same 
church, all of unquestioned character 
232 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

and strictly religious; often gathering 
at the same communion table, and yet 
that brother never so much as spoke 
to either of those sisters for more than 
forty years, and till his death. He 
would not speak to his old mother 
while she lived, and would not attend 
her funeral when she died. 

They never had an open quarrel, but 
he conceived that he had not received 
his full share of the small estate left by 
his father, and so he simply cut his mo- 
ther and sisters, and all their married 
relations, dead, and so continued to the 
end. I knew two brothers living on 
adjoining farms, who fell out about a 
road running through their land, and 
in consequence neither ever spoke to 
the other for many years, though both 
members of the same church. And 
while they lived, no member of either 
233 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

family ever saluted a member of the 
other. Two men in the neighborhood, 
both men of substance and position, el- 
ders in adjoining congregations, both 
highly reputed for integrity and piety, 
and closely connected by family ties, 
for many years never so much as recog- 
nized each other, any more than 
if they had been Hebrew and 
Philistine, until once meeting in 
the highway, they fell into talk, 
which quickly grew hot, and re- 
sulted in a violent physical encoun- 
ter, with sundry chokings, and smit- 
ings, and wallowings on the ground. 
No one witnessed it except the dis- 
tressed wife of one of them, who also 
was sister of the other, and so the affair 
was never exploited. It ought to be 
said, however, to the praise of God's 
grace, and to the credit of regenerated 

234 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

human nature, that before either of 
them died, grace got the better of both. 
One of them coming to his deathbed, 
sent for the other, who quickly re- 
sponded, and there these old, proud 
and stubborn men confessed their sins 
to God and to each other, and with 
prayers, and tears, and affectionate em- 
bracings, were completely reconciled. 
Examples of this trait were not at all 
uncommon among the people. Some- 
times a congregation was thrown into 
confusion and strife by some paltry 
cause which would have made the 
whole contention comical if it had not 
been so sad. Within my own memory 
the old church of my nativity and of 
my fathers was brought into sore trou- 
ble by the question as to the kind of 
notes to be used in a congregational 
singing-school. Such a school was 
235 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

kept up through the winter, and it met 
once a week in the lecture room. An 
old-fashioned singing master was em- 
ployed to drill the people, and thus en- 
courage singing in public worship. A 
new music book had lately been pub- 
lished in which was used the system of 
notation known as ''patent notes," or, 
as they were slightingly called, ''buck- 
wheat notes." It was claimed that this 
system was much more easily mastered 
than the common system. The ques- 
tion was whether this new book should 
be used in the singing-school. At first, 
the discussion was fairly rational and 
good-tempered, but not for long. 
Soon it waxed warm, quickly the fire 
was kindled and flew from one to an- 
other, until the whole community was 
aflame. For weeks it was the ail-but 
universal topic of conversation and of 
236 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

controversy. If you saw a bunch of 
young people with their heads together 
after sabbath-school, you knew what 
they were so earnestly talking about. 
If you saw two men on horseback in 
the middle of the road wildly gesticu- 
lating and loudly vociferating both at 
once, you were in no doubt as to the 
subject of dispute. Neighbors had an- 
gry debates, church-members fell out, 
and before long the people were ar- 
rayed in two hostile and belligerent 
factions. It resulted in the cleavage 
of the school into two rival and very 
unfriendly schools, and the war went 
on for a year or two. The comical 
part of it was that probably a majori- 
ty, certainly very many, of the fiercest 
fighters could not for their lives have 
told one note from another; yet they 
stood by their guns and fought it out 

237 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

to a finish, as if some great principle of 
the kingdom of God had been at stake. 
Political feeling ran very high and 
discussion was apt to become very 
heated. These men were not office- 
seekers nor trading politicians, but 
they were often very strong partisans, 
and, according to their views, very pa- 
triotic. My family were whigs of the 
strongest kind, and the papers we read, 
and the talk we heard were of such a 
nature that it was ail-but impossible for 
me to understand how a democrat 
could be a Christian, or even an honest 
man. One of the elders of our church 
was a well-known democrat. I now 
know that he was one of the most ex- 
emplary and pious men in the congre- 
gation, but then it was hard for me to 
believe that he could be anything else 
than some sort of disguised scoundrel. 
238 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

If not, how could he vote so infamous 
a ticket, and for such rascals as were 
on it? 

Certain political leaders were, in the 
estimation of some, little else than 
idols, while to others they were ail- 
but devils. Andrew Jackson and 
Henry Clay were such men. When 
Jackson was victorious many went al- 
most wild with joy; when Clay was 
defeated, strong men clenched their 
fists and wept. Let me give an illus- 
tration : My paternal grandfather 
and James Taggart were near neigh- 
bors and close friends from boyhood 
to old age; they were elders in the 
same church for a great many years; 
men of the highest character for 
probity and piety. They were strong- 
ly attached to each other, and lived all 
through their lives in deepest confi- 
239 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

dence. They could talk freely and ra- 
tionally on any subject but one, and 
that one subject was Andrew Jackson. 
His name could hardly be mentioned 
between them without putting their 
friendship in peril. Mr. Taggart 
deeply believed that Jackson was one 
of the greatest and purest public men 
that ever lived, while my grandfather 
as deeply believed that that noted 
Scotch-Irishman was an unmitigated 
rowdy, bully, and all-round scoundrel. 
Neither of them ever introduced the 
name of Jackson in the company of the 
other, but it sometimes happened that 
when neighbors were gathered to- 
gether, some mischievous fellow would 
interject the subject with some com- 
ment, his purpose being simply to have 
some fun out of these venerable men. 
Jackson had been dead for many years, 
240 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

but the introduction of his name was 
like throwing a dynamite cartridge be- 
tween these old friends. There was an 
instant explosion. This usually gave 
much amusement to bystanders. 



241 



CHAPTER XIV 

Until a time quite near the civil war, 
the region of which I am writing was 
very insular, considering that it had 
been settled so long. It is true that for 
many years before that time, the fa- 
mous National Road, built by the U. 
S. Government, ran through the heart 
of that region. This road was the 
great avenue of commerce between the 
east and the west, and considering its 
length, the perfection of its construc- 
tion and the enormous volume of its 
traffic in people and goods, it was by 
far the greatest boulevard ever known 
in America, if not in the world. After 
the railway was pushed as far west as 
Cumberland, Md., about a quarter of a 
242 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 



century elapsed before it came further, 
and during that time nearly the whole 
commerce between the east and the west 
was carried over that road from Cum- 
berland, the end of the railroad, to 
Wheeling, where it struck the Ohio 
river. It was a sort of Broadway a 
hundred and thirty miles long, 
thronged with an enormous traffic. 
Big road-wagons drawn by six and 
eight big horses, and loaded to the top 
of their high covers; stage-coaches, fif- 
ty and sixty each way every day in the 
crowded season, making twelve miles 
an hour, and loaded fore and aft with 
passengers and baggage; express wa- 
gons with lighter loads, and travelling 
faster than the heavy ones; pony ex- 
press with the fast special mail; droves 
of horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and slaves 
tied to a rope, two and two in a long 

243 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

procession; besides multitudes travel- 
ling in private vehicles and on horse- 
back, — such w^as the commerce of this 
wonderful thoroughfare for years. 
But this did not break up the insularity 
of the people and the region. People 
looked on while this mighty stream 
passed, and ministered to its needs, but 
seldom went from their own farms. 
Railroads had not touched the region 
until quite near the civil war, and they 
touched it but little till several years 
after the war. Up to i860, probably 
not one in ten of the older people had 
ever been in a railway car. They went 
but little from home, and seldom far. 
They were contented to live quiet, 
peaceable and pious lives, far from the 
world's madding strife. Itj does not 
follow however, that they were a dull, 
ignorant and stupid people, a mere 
244 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

herd of drudges and dunces. Very far 
from it. Within certain limits, they 
were a well-informed and highly intel- 
ligent people, and strongly intellectual. 
Too many men of great distinction 
have sprung from them to allow the 
supposition that their fathers were 
dunces and drones. In every house you 
would find an assortment of books, and 
good ones at that. You would find 
very few books of fiction, and absolute- 
ly no trash, but books of travel, biog- 
raphy, history, popular science, and 
especially, works of standard value on 
theology, moral philosophy and practi- 
cal religion, as well as on agriculture, 
political economy, and the like. These 
books were read, and studied. They 
cared but little for the dreams of novel- 
ists or the visions of poets, but on sub- 
jects of the first practical importance, 
245 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

on things pertaining to life and godli- 
ness, they were well read, and often 
profoundly informed. They usually 
subscribed for several good newspa- 
pers, religious and secular, besides a 
monthly magazine or two. I now have 
in my library bound copies of a maga- 
zine published in Philadelphia as early 
as 1796, inherited from my great- 
grandfather. It was probably the 
best, perhaps the only magazine then 
published in America. 

The smart transient who grappled in 
debate on any serious subject with one 
of these plain farmers, fancying he had 
an easy victim, was apt to be speedily 
undeceived. The range of their 
knowledge was limited, but within that 
range they were studious, thoughtful 
and highly intelligent men. 

They were by nature suspicious of 
"^' 246 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

anything new, and were prone to throw 
it ofif without ceremony. If they were 
interested in it at all, they would most 
searchingly scrutinize it, and if it stood 
the tests, it was approved, but the bur- 
den of proof was on it. It must veri- 
fy and vindicate itself. If a man came 
along with a new plow, or lighting- 
rod, or patent medicine, the presump- 
tion was always against him, especially 
if he was a Yankee. He must sub- 
stantiate his claim. If he could do 
that they would buy, if not, he was 
shouldered into the road. Particular- 
ly, any Yankee who came along with a 
brand new patent-churn, or washing- 
machine, warranted to do the work 
while you read a book, or with a 
wooden nutmeg, a new-fangled clock, 
or such thing, when he struck a Scotch- 
Irishman was instantly met with an 
247 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

east wind, raw and chilling. Still 
more, when any fakir came into the 
community with some new doctrine in 
religion, some spiritualist, mind-heal- 
er, braggart lecturer, or other such 
humbug, he was quickly shown the 
door. These people were neither 
credulous, sentimental, nor easily 
fooled. They would not jump till 
they saw where they where going to 
light. Charlatanisms and quackeries 
in business, religion or common life, 
they had no welcome for. They 
were hard-headed, clear-eyed, strong- 
minded, brave-hearted men who loved 
truth and righteousness as they saw it, 
and hated lies, delusions, superstitions 
and impostures. 

Their vernacular was full of provin- 
cialisms, not those of ignorance, but 
those of race and inheritance. In fact 
248 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

these provincialisms reveal a good deal 
of the history, the type and the tem- 
perament of the race. The time of 
evening service was never announced 
according to the clock. It was fixed at 
"early candle-lighting." They al- 
ways "lifted" the collection. Prayer- 
meeting was always called "society." 
In announcing a funeral, the minister 
would say, — "they will lift at such an 
hour." By lifting, he meant taking 
up the body to be carried to burial. 
Some of the neighbors always came in 
and sat up all night with the dead, and 
this was called "the wake." There 
were no coffin shops where such goods 
were kept ready for sale, and no cere- 
monious undertakers with their som- 
bre dress and solemn tones, and 
heavy charges. When one died, the 
measure was taken and the cabinet- 
249 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

maker engaged to make a plain coffin 
to order. Neighbors dug the grave, 
and the expense of laying away the 
dead was very small. Everything ex- 
cept the small cost of the coffin, and 
the attendance of the hearse, was en- 
tirely gratuitous. Very rarely was a 
funeral service held in the church, but 
almost invariably in the home, how- 
ever humble. When one died, they 
did not say, he is dead, but ''he 
is gone." When one was slightly 
ill, they would say, he is "poorly," or 
he is "donsie." An absent-minded, or 
negligent person, was said to be "glai- 
kit." Young children were called 
"weans." Their provincialisms re- 
vealed their Scotch lineage, and every 
one of them is to be found in the 
Scotch poets, especially, in Robert 
Burns and Sir Walter Scott. While 
250 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

there were among them wild, rough 
and violent men, yet profane swear- 
ing was uncommon. The genuine 
Scotch-Irishman believed that his sim- 
ple word was good, and that it did not 
need to be fortified by a profane oath. 
It must be confessed, however, that 
among the baser sort coarse, vulgar, 
and even obscene speech was quite too 
common. But the more respectable 
always frowned on such vulgarity. 

When the great war came on it 
brought to that whole region a mighty 
fermentation, and the Scotch-Irish 
spirit rose to the boiling point. This 
broke up the insularity of that section 
of the country. The patriotism of 
their fathers, and the fighting blood in 
their veins, immediately flamed out. 
While the people were hotly divided 
on party issues, in general they were 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

intensely and violently patriotic, as 
their fathers had been. There were 
among them a good many who were 
called "rebel sympathizers, and cop- 
per-heads," but the bulk of the people 
was fiercely in favor of sustaining the 
Government. All the same, the so- 
called '^copperheads" were numerous 
enough and active enough to give in- 
finite trouble to churches and neigh- 
borhoods. Feeling ran very high, and 
discussions were bitter. It was a hard 
time for the pastors of the churches, 
and for others who wanted to keep 
peace. There are people now living, 
who cannot be proud of the stand their 
fathers took in that dark and trying 
hour. I doubt if any man today is 
proud of the fact that his father was 
a "copperhead." But the immense 
majority of these people showed their 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

faith by their works, as was the habit 
of their race. Their young men 
rushed to arms by the thousand. Old 
Buffalo graveyard is full of the ashes 
of heroic young men from that congre- 
gation who gave their lives for their 
country, and only some of those who 
did so, were brought home for burial. 
I have studied the authentic statistics 
thoroughly, and am willing to venture 
the statement that no other section of 
this country, of equal population, gave 
as many of its sons to the Union Army, 
as did Washington county. Pa., and the 
region immediately adjoining. And 
no other gave so many to wounds and 
death. Quite a number of crack regi- 
ments were recruited there, regiments 
whose battle record is surpassed by 
none, and equalled by few. In like 
proportion, the Scotch-Irish commu- 

253 



SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 



nities of the South, furnished men for 
their army. They were governed by 
like convictions, however mistaken we 
may think their convictions were. 
These Scotch-Irishmen made the best 
soldiers in the world, as their fathers 
had done. The Scotch-Irish regi- 
ments in both armies showed as no 
others, their ability to stand up to their 
work, and give and take wounds and 
death. The greatest losses known to 
modern warfare, in proportion to the 
number engaged, were suffered when 
Scotch-Irish regiments from Pennsyl- 
vania and Ohio encountered men of 
the same race from North Carolina 
and Virginia on the battlefield of Get- 
tysburg. Stonewall Jackson himself, 
and the bulk of his renowned corps, 
were of this blood and lineage. 
When men of this blood met face to 

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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

face on the battlefield, the issue always 
was, victory or death. The church- 
yards of Washington county, and ad- 
joining counties, are full of the bones 
of the heroic dead who gave their lives 
for their country, and the ashes of 
many others of her sons were left in 
southern graves. John Kelly, execu- 
tive officer of the Tecumseh, went 
down with his ship in Mobile Bay, 
because he disdained to leave her when 
he might have escaped, and because he 
gave way to a subordinate ofiicer. 
He was an old Buffalo boy, and a sam- 
ple of his class. Very many noble and 
gallant fellows fell in the garb of pri- 
vate soldiers, while some reached com- 
mand, higher or lower. One old Buf- 
falo boy, after a distinguished career 
in the civil war, and later, in the regu- 
lar army, won high distinction by 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

quelling the insurrection in Manilla, 
and after commanding the Department 
of California, now wears in his retire- 
ment, the stars of a Major-General 
won by long and gallant service. 

But that great convulsion stirred up 
the people of that quiet rural region 
and shook them out of their insularity. 
The young men who returned from 
the great war were no longer the sim- 
ple rustics they had been. The great 
earthquake had bulged up the entire 
country and thrown the population out 
into the swirling currents of the world. 

Then came on the era of railroads, 
of coal development of natural gas 
and oil, of mills and manufactures, the 
great growth of population and of 
commercial enterprise, and so the old 
community is no longer what it once 
was. An immense inundation from 
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SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA 

the swamps, offal-heaps of southern 
Europe, threatens to engulf what we 
hold most sacred and dear. The old 
type however, is still persistent, 
though it has been greatly modified 
by the conditions of modern life. 
But in fact, the Scotch-Irishman still 
rules the region. The sturdy, genu- 
ine and endearing elements in the 
blood and fibre of the people who 
originally settled that magnificent sec- 
tion, still show themselves, and it will 
be long before they are subdued. Let 
us hope they may never be. Let 
us hope that the shades of the faith- 
ful and heroic dead may long hover 
over that section, and that their mem- 
ory and influence may never pass 
awaj^. 



257 



